The Defiant Ones
by paradises
Summary: AU. • Welcome to the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy for Troubled Young Men and Women; Enter at your own risk. —zg/mm; zg/cm; ls/gn; bb/gn; pw/mm. / "Liz smiles like a little evil genius — like Belinda Koboi, except with less of the take-over-the-world mindset and more of the "let's ruin everybody's lives for the fun of it" — waving. Yep, definitely Belinda Koboi."
1. prologue

[the defiant ones]

_Welcome to the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy._

**Meet Cameron Morgan.**

"You can't control love. It controls you."  
"Okay, Little Miss Love Guru. You're the one who stole my boyfriend."  
"...which one, bitch?"

_the compulsive shoplifter;;_

"I can't believe that you stole my freaking-"  
"-language, Cameron."  
"Oops. I meant fucking."

**Meet Elizabeth Sutton.**

"I'm not a bad person."  
"You have three pounds of drugs in the basket of your Strawberry Shortcake bicycle."  
"I did it for the better good of...education?

_the druggie hacker;;_

**Meet Macey McHenry.**

"Give me that, or I'll put a curse on you."  
"Hell, no. I'd rather get this vodka."  
"Screw you."

_the runaway heiress;;_

**Meet Rebecca Baxter.**

"I'm insane. I can't help myself."  
"You're not insane, Rebecca."  
"Oooh, shiny moon-shaped cloud! Look, there's the Magic School Bus!"

_the neurotic criminal;;_

**Meet Zachary Goode.**

"Do you fear me?"  
"No."  
"My mother is head of the COC. Run."

_the international terrorist;;_

**Meet Grant Newman.**

"One day, I'm going to tell you that I love you."  
"I'm your mother."  
"You're a bitch."

_the heartless murderer;;_

**Meet Preston Winters**

"You know that you love me, McHenry. I'm Preston Winters."  
"Stop trying to be like Chuck Bass."  
"But he gets _all _the girls!"

_the wannabe playboy;;_

**Meet Jonas Nakagawa**

"I'm going to kill you, now."  
"I thought that this place was violence-free?"  
"You're such a wimp, Jonas."

(we have no idea how _he _got in here)

.

**we'll meet them in detention**  
and in jail  
_and at prom._

**.**

"I'm just so glad that you're so horribly rotten. It's a turn-off."  
"Then, why do you like me?"  
"I never said that I like you. You're just a good kisser."

.

"Don't you dare run away! You're disobeying the guyble!"  
"The guyble? Seriously, Grant?"  
"Aha. Now you have to listen to me."

.

"Oh, shit! We just missed the ice cream truck."  
"You know, maybe you are improving."  
"All my drugs were in there!"

.

_Enter at your own caution._

_._

_._

_._

**tbc.**

* * *

**coming to computers near you, soon, :) two reviews for an update?**

**clara**


	2. one

**Name: **Macey Isabella McHenry

**Birthday:** August 9th, 1995

**Age: **Seventeen

**Reason for Admittance: **Excessive consumption of alcohol and rebellious plottings

;;

"Don't touch me, bitch."

Macey pulled her hand away quickly, as if she was stung by the grip that one of the women had held upon crossing the busy Washington D.C. street, and pondered upon taking off, running through the streets as though she would be as free as an eagle. Instead, she laughed at the irony. America was prided upon its symbol of freedom, "the eagle".

As far as she was considered, freedom was probably the opposite of the daily life of Macey McHenry. For a moment, her pocket buzzed, sending a vibration down her body as she cursed, remembering that she was supposed to be at some briefing meeting three minutes ago.

_Screw briefing meetings, _Macey thought.

She didn't really care that she was the daughter of the newest President and exclusive model, Cynthia McHenry; in her mind, they were just her guardians.

Anyway, as soon as she turned eighteen she would be able to run away from this thing that she had been forced to call home (at the time, she was chained down, though), and spend her life somewhere —anywhere would be better than _here. _Yeah, what the hell; she ends up going to that stupid party in the end, because there's really nothing else left to do.

Like always, Macey feels out of place with the adults looking at her strangely, as though they're looking at her as though she's some sort of messed-up charity case, but then again, she really never has been, and she's really fighting the urge to yell that she's the freaking President's daughter, but then again, even if she did that, who would believe her?

"Oh, dear, Macey, what happened to you?" So, like usual, Macey's immediately flocked by these three girls (sometimes, she forgets their names), Tori (who's the one with the really bad haircut, that looks as though she cut it herself), Jess (little miss perfect), and Isabella (um, she's strange). The outburst, like expected, started off from Tori.

Just then, she sees her ex: Preston Winters, who's smirking at her from across the room, raising a glass of wine, wait, no, it's baby Preston, he doesn't drink wine, it's probably some concoction of chocolate milk and tooty-fruity lemonade. And for some reason, he's looking really hot in that fitted suit and polka-dotted tie, the same one that Macey had given him three weeks for their fifth anniversary, and she just wants to kiss him even though they'd broken up.

Isabella distracts her. "God, Mace, darling—" she says, as though she's already a fully-grown adult. "—were you _raped_?" Isabella talks really loudly.

Okay, so that grabs Macey attention for sure; so, she snaps out of this trance of hallucinations and cinematic daydreams and throws her glass of wine onto Isabella's ugly little face. Seriously, she was wearing a pair of ripped skinny jeans, and maybe the shirt was riding up a little high, but still, seriously? Looking into the reflection of the glass, she could see that her hair and make-up was all fine, so what was Isabella's deal?

That's, like, also when she notices the silence.

_I'm going to hell, _Macey thinks.

;;

"You know, I actually wasn't serious," Macey muttered, dismissing a rude hand gesture as she let her maid —the name was...Vivian? Inez? —. She didn't really care: all she cared about was the fact that her stupid guardians were shipping her off to hell, like, seriously. "Anyway, who are you to decide my future: the President and his trophy wife?"

There, she had finally said it. There were this loud gasps echoing across the room from the maid, who still hadn't left, as though she couldn't believe that Miss McHenry had actually said _that_, even though every employee working for the McHenry family had probably thought of it that way at least once, if not multiple times, especially recently.

"This," the_ President _suddenly speaks up, "—is exactly why we're sending you to The Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy for Troubled Young Men and Women."

What the hell. "Why?"

"Because you need to change your attitude, young woman." The Trophy Wife suddenly speaks up, throwing an invisible speck of dirt from under her recently manicured nails to Macey, who only rolls her eyes, crossing her arms and digging the back of her leather boot's right heel into the hardwood floor, just the way Trophy Wife hates it.

_Screw you._

Yeah, um, that's how she ends up on the corner of the street.

She's shielding her face, even though, seriously, nobody's standing outside 1600 Pennyslvania Avenue, even though she's sure that there should be some annoying group of tourists with their ugly white sneakers and handmade tie-dye shirts coming along quickly, but she doesn't really care. Instead, Macey's just packed together a small bag and ran away from the President.

It really probably won't last long, but Macey refuses to put down her tough girl exterior.

_Honk. Honk. Honk._

What the hell, again. She's not really sure what in the world a bike is doing with this horn thing, but she realizes, only five seconds later, that it's Preston, Preston fucking Winters, the first and maybe, hopefully not, hopefully so, last love of her freaking messed-up life, and she's not really sure what the hell he's doing, but he's just saying something along the lines of "blackthorne-gallagher".

It's enough for her to hop on.

_Enjoy the ride._

;;

She absolutely hates her father.

It's not like, oops, Macey means that she absolutely hates the President, because he's not _really _the proper definition of a father, because he apparently felt as though it was necessary to send her off to stupid boarding school, away from everybody, including Preston, because of her riding, in public, without "parental" supervision in an inappropriate vehicle, inappropriate especially for a young lady.

It was _so _worth it though, even though there wasn't really any rush coming from the wind, flying through her, well, not hair, because her hair was safely tucked away into the hideous black-and-white helmet, so yeah, what was she thinking about?

The man in the front passes back a file. "I'll need you to memorize this, and then eat it."

"What?"

He looks back, only once. "—it's Eva—". His whole body frame vibrates for a moment, and Macey wonders whether he's just been called on his cell, but the man doesn't seem to be wearing a Bluetooth or carrying any other mobile device, but moments later she has her answer when the driver has passed out, lying on the floor; she's afraid to kneel down, but Macey can tell that he'll only be living for a short time longer. "You need to run, Miss McHenry."

She's running now.

It's not really a sprint, but she's looking back every now and then, wondering why her driver, of all people, was killed in front of her, even though she hadn't seen any blood spilling out of his chest or other telltale signs of murder and the like. Macey runs until she runs smack dab into a tall man, with an amusing label, "Bubblegum Guard", and pushes her into the school.

"Welcome to the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy for Troubled Young Men and Women, Miss McHenry. Try not to die."

* * *

**update: **this is really disjointed, so i'm sorry for that. thanks for all the reviews, guys! which person do you think i should do next? **three **reviews for an update (each reviewer will be given a preview of the next chapter).

clara


	3. two

**Name: **Preston James Winters

**Birthday:** November 24th, 1996

**Age: **Sixteen

**Reason for Admittance: **Resistance to Jail Admittings

;;

Yeah, he's Preston Winters —he's that guy that _everybody _knows, and everybody magically has to fall in love with, because he just, sort of, has this charismatic appeal that comes so naturally. He is standing outside of a pair of fine mahogany doors, pressing down his suit before the doors open and Preston is trampled, falling to the ground as a crowd of people scurry out of the boardroom, or so it is called. Seconds later, as soon as he manages to smooth down his hair and designer button-down dark blue shirt, handcuffs are roughly thrown around his hands, and brought upwards in a swift, jerking motion.

"Do you _know _who I am?" Preston exclaims, flipping his shaggy blond hair, which has grown a little too long to belong to a normal boy. "I am Preston James Winters, PJW," he continues, trying and failing to act like Chad Dylan Cooper, one of his current role models, instead sounding as though he is a sandwich. He's still cool, though, at least according to _Hollywood Live! _and _Teen Vogue, _so that's what really counts —these police officers don't know that, though.

The broader one takes a deep breath, and stares at him, then smiles. "Are you that boy from the White House? My daughter's a huge fan of your show; what's the name, again? All the Cool Kids?" The police officer takes off his helmet and smiles, at him broadly. Cool dude...who has long blonde hair and is currently applying a coat of lipstick? _It's not a dude, man. It's not a dude._

"_Yesyesyes," _Preston jumps onto the excuse. "I'm from that show, and I play Monte, Monte Burke. Psh, everybody's heard of me."

She puts back on her helmet. "Nice try, kid. Monte Burke is a writer for _Forbes, _and he's also my husband, so unless this is some strange coincidence, I'm going to have to put you behind bars."

"No!" Preston protests. "What about my hairspray? I can't go to prison! My hair will dry up within a day!"

The police officer, Mrs. Burke, puts both her hands on her unusually large hips, and smirks at Preston, who suddenly gulps. She moves to the front of the truck and command the driver to get this show on the road, and within a few minutes and with the help of these flashy red lights that stops basically everybody obedient on the streets, they're already at the police station, and his worst dream is coming true. He's not even sure how his parents will react to this; they told him that they'd give him one more chance when he trashed his new Jaguar in the midst of being drunk (for the _firstnothirdnofifteenthyes) _time. Needless to say, his mother and father wouldn't be thrilled once they would be given to the bail bill, unless Preston could manage to get out of this situation himself, without any help, backup, or large suitcases of money.

It was worth a shot. "Where are you going to be taking me?"

"Goodbye," Mrs. Burke mutters, in a good-riddance sort of way before wheeling him off into a limousine, directing him to no other than the board meeting that the McHenrys and the Winters had been planning to co-host since what seemed like the beginning of time itself.

Preston ends up walking in late, wearing nothing but a business-casual suit and the strangest tie he's ever seen, walking up to a group of young socialites who quickly start buttering up the Vice President's only son, offering him drinks and delicacies as the night spun away into a myriad of colors. Macey's looking at him in this come-hither sort of way, but Preston flips her off, because he's changed since he's last dated her, or so that's what he tells his friends, who immediately remind them that he only broke up with her three days ago.

He could definitely start getting used to this.

Everything was going fine until the after-party's clean-up, in which his father specifically called him down from the Grand Hall to his office, and Preston ended up gulping and sighing and wondering what on earth was going to happen to his new hairspray collection all the way down there —if only he knew, it would be _much _worse.

The iron, fire-proof set of doors haven't looked this threatening in forever.

It's been approximately three years since his father has been in office, yet everything still seems all new, with a foreboding sense as he lightly knocks on the door, because after all these years, Preston's still slightly scared of his father, just like everybody else in the world. "We heard from the police, Preston," his father announces, spinning backwards in his chair as two equally terrifying bodyguards stared at Preston. "What were you thinking? Getting yourself into a scandal—"

"Scandal?" Preston's facial features were _scandalous. _"A scandal is having an affair, a scandal is crashing your significant's other cars in the wood, a scandal is killing the person who you were politically against. A scandal is not planting a stink bomb, and resisting jail. " It's just a fact of life —whether his father wishes to admit it true or not.

Nevertheless, his father is staring at him dead-eyed, at least until his mother joins the conversation; she's a young (Preston sees that much) Chinese businessman, or in this case, businesswoman, but that would be sexist and all, but apparently his father was in one of his worst times when he fell in love with his current wife. _Congrats, _Preston thought to himself. _Daddy's got a new record, for Wife Number 9. _It was just another one of those facts that nobody should or could know about.

"Karen actually suggested that we send to you to this place that she found in a magazine," his father announces, spinning in his chair once again, frowning slightly when she spinning stopped, just like a child. "It's called the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy for Troubled Young Men and Women. We can send you there right away, and I'm sure they'll have some late admission spot for you. After all, connections are everything."

_Stop quoting movies, and books, Dad._

"Fine," Preston replies. "I can't _wait _until I leave."

After all, here Preston was the worst in whatever he did —at least there, at whatever that troubled school was, he would have a chance at being the best, and then again, after all, he was Preston James Winters, and Preston James Winters was always the best, right?

* * *

**update: **you guys are the best! thirteen reviews for a three-review asked chapter? amazing, :) anyway, sorry to ask again, but another **three **reviews for an update (plus a preview; hope you guys who reviewed liked the previews)?

**clara**


	4. three

**Name: **Grant Casimir Newman

**Birthday:** June 3rd, 1994

**Age: **Seventeen

**Reason for Admittance: **Excessive Juvenile Homicide

::

Grant waltzed through the butterflies, swatting away the excessive amounts of insects that had saw it fit to crowd around his house, forming a blocade near the entrance. From the moment he walked inside of the small house, he knew something has gone wrong; out of all the people in Glasglow, Grant recognized the faint smell of iron and fell to the floor, cursing violently as he examined the traces of blood, scratched fingernails on the cabinet. He carefully crawled below the broken debris, avoiding both the shards of ceramic and the pieces of glass cast carelessly across the chipped hardwood flooring.

"Chocolate," he thought aloud, bringing the empty wrappers that quite frankly reeked of iron to his nose that scrunced in protest, instead examining the glass bowl of nightlock upon the island. The room was in disarray, empty dishes with food remains still on them cast carelessly upon the wet floor, boxes of bones and crackers opened. Even worse, Grant realized as he hastily dove into the reddish cabinets, was that all the money, all the savings for a better life were gone, replaced by the golden letter A.

Moments later, Grant let out a gasp. It was not one that was horrified, but expected; working as an "intern" at the police station led to discovery of deaths near the routine daily. His mother lay on the floor, eyes still wide open as her mouth foamed, blood slowly seeping out of the right hand while the left was in a death grip around a piece of paper. It was quite clear that she was no longer breathing, yet, nevertheless, Grant crawled down on his bare knees, blood from the floor soaking into his dry, flaking skin, listening for the sounds that did not come.

However, he did not cry. His mother was dead, and he did not cry; sentiment is not of any value, as it only leads to destruction. Caring is not an advantage, Grant reminds himself as he struggles to pick himself off the carpet, holding the frail body of his mother in his arms as he walked outside, quickly retreating. It wouldn't look good for him to commit an act like that, he knew very well that the neighbours would then think that he had committed the action or murder. Suddenly, alarms start blaring and Grant notices that he's been surrounded; there are police officers coming in through the back door, guns in their hands and a short knife in the other, as if they were ready for some blood. Some crash through the makeshift garden, stamping upon the roses and lilacs that his mother had treasured so dearly. Within minutes, they raised their weapons on defenseless him, who ended up crashing through the windows in an attempt of no avail to escape.

"Put your hands up, Mr. Newman! You're under arrest!" One of the police officers demands, cornering him into the bathroom closet, the smell of salted potato chips and moldy bread floating throughout the room; deflated beach balls fill the closet, and a saline solution misted into his right eye clogs Grant's already poor vision. He fell to the floor, releasing his mother's body, which was escorted, in a sense, onto a stretcher that was immediately loaded onto a speeding ambulance. Perhaps, this was where Grant could have remedied his so-called mistakes, but then he burst out into fits of laughter —if it makes sense, at the time.

Moments later, they had escorted him to the police station. "I don't know what I did wrong," Grant admitted, his face completely serious as he sat upon one of the hard folding chairs, his arms bound by the shackles that stretched vertically.

"Of course, you don't," the police officer replied, "—all the evidence proves against what you just said. You were holding the victim in your hands; you have proved to be a violent person during your childhood, anyway. You'll be taken to the court next week." And with that, his life was over.

::

Grant, officially an eighteen year old as of the previous night, impatiently tapped tapped his worn black sneakers against the overly-polished floor of the courtroom. His light brown eyes scanned the room. His social worker, Charles Reynolds was yet to show up in the dingy place, smelling more like leftovers and rotting apartments, complete with the pile of dead flies on the left, never the right, side of the courtroom and the linoleum floors glistening with pride; Grant snorted, looking at the demeaning look of Judge Blight and how he lowered his gaze, slower that Grant would like, looking at him with a condescending glare, as if he wasn't aware of the boy's name —Grant knew otherwise. After all, he had been here at least four times in the past four weeks, after the incident with his mother, which practically wasn't even his own fault, yet nobody would believe the boy; just believe the cold evidence since sick police officers like them were just those typical heartless snobs. "I was promised a soda," he muttered, kicking a stone towards the man who had just entered, without the diet cherry soda or typical sandwich.

"Sorry, I'm late, Mr. Newman," his social worker, Charles Reynolds apologizes in a rushed tone. The only so called sad part is that that face, the face of his social worker, is the most regular to be seen —and it's not a pretty face.

The judge has already been seated for hours, a scowl permanently embedded onto his harsh face (has the dude ever smiled?), creases forming and veins throbbing. "Your name is Grant Newman, am I wrong?" He reads the file's label over thick rimmed glasses.

Grant nods in agreement.

"Mr. Newman, you will be sent to the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy for Troubled Young Men and Women for the duration of the year," Judge Blight explained. "Mr. Reynolds will be checking in with you periodically. This is your last chance, Mr. Newman. Please do not try to screw things up, otherwise I will personally conduct your decapitation." If it wasn't for the stern look on the judge's face, Grant would have bursted out laughing; what century was it again?

Sooner or later, he was sent back out into the hallway, another case being brought in. Grant watched from the outside as a young girl, tears falling down her cheeks, was sentenced to a lifetime in prison; he wasn't sure what crime the girl had committed, but it didn't seem fair for that judgement. Nevertheless, Grant replaced his facade of nonchalance.

Following Charles down the hallway, down the steeper of steps of the court's various staircases, Grant was led into the pavillion. From the corner of his eye, he could see paparazzi snapping away; they would keep on flashing even if the apocalypse occurred. Charles focused his attention on Grant, frowning as if they had this conversation several times —which, in truth, they had. "Alright, kid. This is your last chance, so don't waste it. I'll pick you up tomorrow, so be ready by seven." And with that, he left.

::

**a/n: **That was probably not what you were expecting —turns out Grant didn't kill his mother. Sorry for my long hiatus; please tell me if you'd like a longer/shorter length, and will update the next few intro chapters within this week. I won't lie; reviews do motivate me to write faster, :)

With the help of **twelve reviews (the average of the story's reviews) **I promise to update by or before July 16th, 2013.

Thanks to **sparkle filled hearts,** _CosmicHeart0114, _**splendeur, **_ThreeFlyingBirds, _**XxCandyGirlxX, **_BunnySwag101, _**wittykittylizzie, **_Guest, _**miyame-chan, ViolinistoftheNight,**and **Uknowiloveu **for reviewing! Seriously, it means a lot and I really enjoy reading all of your reviews, :)

**clara**


	5. four

**a/n: **happy birthday to **GallagherGirls13BYE1DTS**, :)

**Name: **Elizabeth Taryn Sutton

**Birthday:** March 13th, 1997

**Age: **Fifteen

**Reason for Admittance: **Possession of Illegal Drugs

;;

Elizabeth adjusted the strap of her leather messenger bag on her frail shoulder, covered by a flimsy material yet the best that her family could afford —they were all going through a rough time. Normally the bag would be much lighter, but today she had a better exchange than others; in the early hours of the morning, Elizabeth had left her parent's house, walking before hitching a ride on the back of a farm vehicle, coughing through the heavy amounts of pollen and weed to which she had severe allergic reactions to. The man she had bought the drugs from was a little on the scrawny side, but well built by the shoulders with various battle scars.

Sometimes, on a good day, he would give her some extra supply if she bothered to spend time around dawdling, listening him tell the tales of his battles. "It was a foggy September day," he used to recall, looking far into the distance; every time, it took everything Elizabeth had to stop herself from snorting, having laughed for at least three miles on the ride back home. _There's nobody in sight, _she reminded herself, trying to look just a little more stealthy and innocent.

That part wouldn't be too hard, however.

Nobody would suspect little Elizabeth Sutton, who was a shoe-in for the spot of class valedictorian, most likely to succeed, and prom queen in that little Nebraska city, to be a drug dealer —which was why it made the perfect cover, she had been working on since the ninth grade.

Ninth grade was when trouble started happening. It wasn't the type of trouble that could be resolved with a few extra jobs, even though Elizabeth had tried working various jobs; she still had a few faint tomato stains from the time that she portrayed one of the jail attendants in a renaissance fair all the way back then, at least three years prior to the current date.

"_Hey, _sugar," a man leered at her from the side of the street, a ladle in one hand as he fed a few stews to the scrawny children among them, each of them fighting over who would get the last carrot. Elizabeth turned her head away, placed on a pair of Calvin Klein wide-rimmed sunglasses that covered her light eyebrows and baby blue eyes, and walked down the street head held high. Her stash had already been planted in a top-secret location, that being Jimmy Parker's treehouse.

Jimmy Parker was one of those little kids who everybody always suspected was going to be a one-hit wonder, the next Elvis, perhaps when he grew up; Jimmy had these angelic blond ringlets that formed above his head, and was definitely the cutest kid in town. Sometimes, Elizabeth felt a pang of pity for him (or at least, she did back in the day), knowing that all the kids in school would make fun of him. Then again, he would definitely be chased after by some desperate girls in prom was usually a pretty smart girl, so she should have noticed the police cars following her, but she didn't.

You know what they say —pride comes before a fall; her fall was coming soon enough.

;;

"Mhm," she murmured over the phone. "So what's _that _supposed to mean? I don't really understand why you still think that SSA is a postulate, Cary." Elizabeth picked a hangnail off a baby pink ring finger, talking softly into the phone —just because she did drug dealing, tutoring was the two of the jobs that actually looked good —and _legal_— on college applications, which would be coming up soon enough. "An angle and two sides does not guarantee that two triangles are congruent."

The other line of the phone started beeping, and within a few seconds, the phone line became disconnected.

Elizabeth turned off her cell phone with a sigh, flopping back onto a crinkled duvet before smoothing down the sheets wondering how long she was going to be able to keep up this facade, if she was able to anymore. It was if she almost had two different personalities —during the day, she was one of those typical good girls who spent their whole life trying to get into the Ivy's (not the armpits, but the core schools) and making their parents proud of them; during the night, she was a drug dealer. She wasn't even sure if there was such a personality that could be defined; she'd heard the term "crackhead" enough, however.

Just because Elizabeth _was _a drug dealer, it didn't mean that she was immediately the worst person in the world. Then again, she wasn't even at her house, where she was supposed to be, as of now. She walked down the empty hallway, hearing the janitors clean in the background with codes ringing now and then, a team of surgeons running down the halls with their mint green scrubs giving off a faint odor every time they went outside to catch a break of air, to refresh themselves.

"Elizabeth Sutton, here to see Abigail Sutton," she introduced herself, sitting down on one of the waiting chairs in the _super comfy area, _as the Polish lady always insisted on saying, in that horrible accent that made every situation, and day, a whole lot worse. She holds her breath as she walks into room 234 (she's not supposed to be here, but Elizabeth doesn't really care about anything anymore) and watches the little girl's chest rise up and down.

She promptly breaks into tears —this is her sister, her _freakingyoungerbaby _sister, who's just three years old, and she doesn't deserve to have terminal cancer! It's all her fault, really. Elizabeth was the one who pushed her sister (playfully, she used to think) off of at that stool, and then the nosebleeds started coming.

Then, there were the bruises, and sooner or later, their family went into so much debt, and then they became broke and her mother started stealing money from the bank, from her job in order to pay the mortgage so that they wouldn't have to live on the streets. Her father had to quit his job so that he could take Abigail to chemotherapy and different treatments all over the country, from the Mayo Clinic all the way down in Rochester to wherever Abigail needed to go, so that she could live.

It wasn't even her fault; life was just so unfair.

;;

The exact _moment _that Elizabeth walked through familiar mahogany doors, she was surrounded, immediately, as if these police officers had been waiting in her house all night. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her parents' panicked expressions and she knew what had happened —they had found her stash, they had discovered who she really was and then she would have to stop but she couldn't, she was too addicted and too into the business to stop that. It was too late.

"Elizabeth, would you like to tell me what these _lovely gentlemen _are doing in our house?" Her mother spoke in a frantic tone, trying to conceal the rudeness in her voice with flattery and compliments, but even the widest amount of that wouldn't get Elizabeth out of jail or wherever juvenile delinquents go to.

Her life was officially over.

**tbc.**

**a/n: **So, Liz is probably going to be out of character; then again, at the beginning all the characters are. However, something will change —turns out they'll all have to work together if they want to survive/overcome this greater challenge in the world and become friends. I won't lie; reviews do motivate me to write faster, :) Please also check out my other Gallagher Girls story **The Selection **as I'll be updating new versions of older chapters, changing some of the background information and also posting sporadic updates of new chapters.

With the help of **twelve reviews (the average of the story's reviews) **I promise to update by or before July 17th, 2013.

Thanks to **ViolinstOfTheNight, wittykittylizzie,** _Black rabbit, _**GallagherGirls13BYE1DTS, lilyroselilac123, **_Guest, _**TerryCherry, miyame-chan, Uknowiloveu, sparkle filled hearts, & XxCandyygirlxX **for reviewing! Thank you so much, guys, :) Hope you liked the preview!

**clara**


	6. five

**SHOUTOUT: This chapter is dedicated to Rachel (sparkle filled hearts), Anam (Uknowiloveu), Liz (wittykittylizzie), & ViolinistOfTheNight for being really supportive, and reviewing every single chapter of this story so far. :) Also, beta-read by the fantastic sparkle filled hearts; check out her stories!**

**Name: **Zachary Sebastian Goode

**Birthday:** November 19th, 1995

**Age: **Seventeen

**Reason for Admittance: **International terrorism; allegiance to the Circle of Cavan

;;

He dumps the suitcase in the third room to the left, marking his territory with the mini-minefield, a birthday president from _mother, dear _and strides off into the common room. Zach coolly examines the room; everything was the same as last year with the fireplace just being warmed up in the distance, the smell of Scotch strong in water bottles and insulated coffee mugs, Virginia Slims dumped around in open Louis Vuitton's, girls and guys making up and making out in open bedroom doors, which he quickly shuts. There was some rule in this new Academy that the girls and guys couldn't go to each others' rooms, but they still ended up sneaking around.

"Hey, man, what's shakin'?" He'd already been able to mark out the _real _troublemakers of Gallagher-Blackthorne, by the way that their jeans rested loosely on their hips or the fact that some of the students insisted on wearing the argyle sweaters and Mary Jane-style shoes, whether they were female or male. It reminded him; he had a prank to pull.

"Nothing, much," he only replies. Zach had barely ever even met the guy, let alone conversed with him, but it didn't kill him to make a few friends, that could eventually be used as alibis as if he was caught, making his escape from this hellhole. From the corner of his eye, Zach could see those unfortunate souls —who weren't really _that _unfortunate. They were hanging upside down on the school's playground; seriously, how old did the school think its trouble making juvenile delinquents were; in nothing but a frilly tank top and boxer shorts, borrowed from some of the more vindictive, bitchy girls, of which this school had a lot.

"How did I even get here in the first place?" he murmurs to himself, winking at a few girls that pass by who only laugh at him; ah, trouble. At least that would make this school year a little more enjoyable. He notices the new arrivals out of the corner of his eye —there's the typical group of _ohsopretty_ bitches sitting in the corner while they file their nails, but there's no head bitch, anymore; he lets out a low whistle. Out of all people, Zach knows that it takes some massive skill to get out of a school, just for troublemakers, also known as juvenile delinquents with rich daddies and conniving mommies.

.

_past —august, 2012_

Zach's watching the parrot cage when the alarm starts to go off. Taking a long drag, he purses his lips and blows out a ring of smoke in her direction, grinning when the guards around him wince in disgust; he waves the smoke away with one hand. The room's practically empty, but Zach can see the outlines of two figures walking through the metal gates, let in by the buzzer and the security guards —there's a guy and a girl, that much he can tell, and they're both wearing matching outfits; dressed all in black, from head to toe, nothing concealing their skin above the neck, however, with the same tattoo embedded onto their bare neck and lower wrist that he's seen on the rest of the Cavan members.

He can tell that these two marks are different, however; the green snake looks different on both of their arms, and its tongue is colored in, almost as if a child painted it over with watercolors or colored pencils, and easily fades into clear skin when the girl presses it, out of frustration, and then gasps in annoyance at her mistake. They stop near the end of the hallway, outside one of the doors; Zach can see that they're bickering back and forth, as if they're trying to make a decision. He can make out the fact that the girl's changed her shoes into slim stilettos and the boy now dons ratty sneakers; she passes over a Ben Franklin to the security guard who snorts in amusement (he gets paid way more than that), but takes _just one _look at the sorrowful looks of sadness on the teens' faces and lets them into the room. Zach, like the curious yet cocky person that he is, decides to follow them; after all, he knows what's in _that room._

It's the room of that girl who went into a coma a few weeks back —they had her as a patient in the nuthouse, but instead, something went wrong and she tried to break out and spill the secrets of her previous employer, the Circle of Cavan, because everybody knows that some secrets are too hot to handle, so she had to be taken away; the tracks were covered, however. Zach had visited the girl a few times, just out of curiosity, until his own mother —Boss, he called her— had sent him to the torture chambers for a week, yelling at him in between bursts of fury that he could never go in there again, almost as if she was scared of the girl.

That thought was illogical, however; Catherine Goode wasn't scared of _anybody._

After all, Zach had never been scared, so where else could that trait have come from —definitely not the mysterious biological father that nobody wanted to mention. He had questions, and he wanted answers, but they weren't going to be given to him. Which is why he had just pulled the alarm fifteen minutes ago, and was currently making his way to Headquarters.

He gasps as he made his way into the elevator, pulling out a hair sample that he had snatched from one of the Commanders a few weeks back, and one of those regular training meetings that he, the son of the Boss, was mandated to attend. He overhears some of the voices. "Wonder what son of a bitch set off the alarms, this time. Don't you know, stupid kid, that we're not _gonna fall for it! _I was trained by the IVA. Stupid idiot," the guard mutteres, underneath his breath.

Seconds later, he takes off and runs in the other direction; Zach wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but he wasn't going to waste a chance like this. He hops down from the vent, another one of his secret passageways that he had discovered over the years. After all, as sad as it sounded, this had kinda been his home. The moment Zach hops down, he realizes why the Commanders had run off, as far as they could make.

"This is Officer Wilden," the police officer says, looking burlier than most men that Zach had seen, "—and we've got a _code five _on our hands. We're gonna have a celebration by the time we get home. Guess what? I've captured that kid; the kid of Boss Goode." For a moment, Zach just wonders what had happened to his mother.

"What did you do to her?" he demands, throwing a weak punch at the officer who immediately put him in handcuffs. It really would have helped to actually listen to the person who led the training course, Zach thinks to himself, but now, or any other time, was not the time to be thinking about the _would be's and could have done's. _"What did you do to my_fucking _mother?"

Officer Wilden sends Zach a glare. "Oh, sonny. For all you know, you might meet up with her again. Probably soon, actually depending on what we find out about you, in these files, tonight. You'll probably see her soon," he starts, before a dark shadow looms over his face. "In the grave."

_Oh, shit._

.

**a/n: **thanks to **ViolinstOfTheNight, GallagherGirls13BYE1DTS, TerryCherry, wittykittylizzie, **Black Rabbit, **ForeverAGallagherGirl135, XxCandyyGirlxX, Uknowiloveu, Zammie Forever , mnash123, sparkle filled hearts,** and Guest! Because of your review, and suggestions —because of that, I decided that at least _this chapter shouldn't _end in a cliffhanger; this chapter was really hard to write, which is why it took so long; It's just so hard to capture Zach's cocky but sensitive personality. Please review, for a preview? Sorry how short this intro things are, but I promise that when I actually start the story, the chapters will be around four thousand words each, and this intro thing is 1,424 words.

With **thirteen reviews, **I promise to update by or before July 21st, 2013.

clara


	7. six

**Name: **Rebecca "Bex" Baxter

**Birthday:** August 23rd, 1999

**Age: **Sixteen

**Reason for Admittance: **Failures at the Preserve; Criminal Actions

::

_Past —September, 2012_

Darkened curls hang down from a pointed hat, tendrils fall out of place and weave into polluted air; high-rise skyscrapers decorate the surroundings, individuals walking down the street tend to avoid her. She is wearing the new fringed Kelly green Prada dress, a gift from her parents as a reward for surviving three weeks in the asylum, and anybody can smell the Grey Goose vodka and Ralph Lauren perfume hastily sprayed over, to mask the smell of something that was illegal, at least for the next two years for her.

Rebecca flashes a card, holding it in one hand and a box in the other, assuring the public that it was safe for her to be out in the streets again. It had only been thirteen weeks since she had been admitted into the town's children's asylum, a place where she swore never to go again. She didn't exactly belong there, and would have gladly welcomed some place like jail rather than ever end up living in that hellhole again, though it wouldn't be too long.

"I need to go inside there," Bex mentions, walking into a public building. Immediately, security guards surround her, as if she's being contained again but the pressure and the guilt isn't there anymore —it's been too long. She walks towards the clerk, who's perched at the edge of her seat and nearly falls off upon seeing the familiar, unwelcomed face. Bex takes out a file from the box, and points towards the fact that she'd been allowed to go wherever, as of effect yesterday's date.

The clerk sighs. "You won't be allowed to go into the attic, without a guide," she murmurs softly. Bex reads the funny looking nametag and resists the urge to snicker; this woman definitely was born before the 80's. Which kind of parent would name their child such a horrendous name like Martha? Then again, her parents weren't exactly the best either, she reminds herself. After all, though they were her cushion of cash to fall down upon whenever she fell into jail, it wasn't always so easy. "It's going to be hard to find a guide, at this hour." Bex checks the clock, and surely enough, it was already half past twelve o'clock in the afternoon.

"Then find me a guide," Bex demands; she wasn't exactly going to take no for an answer. After all, she had waited for hours and days and days to finally reach the attic, this place where all of her questions would be answered and she was too far to stop, especially since she was finally a free person, again. "Or I can find one myself," she began slyly, "—after all, I do have _tons of friends _from Dorothea Dix—"

Martha throws her hands up in frustration. "Fine, fine, I'll find you a guide. Just give me a minute!" Bex smiles; her work here was complete.

And, in a few hours, her life would be complete. There was nothing that she wanted more than those answers; ever since she had been admitted at Dorothea Dix, an asylum for children with rich daddies who bail them out of jails, she had done a little research, and learned that her parents weren't exactly her biological ones. Every Sunday, for four hours in the afternoon, the patients there were allotted computer and library time, and she had spent every single minute trying to figure out who her real parents were, but it was of no avail. It was almost if her parents had blocked off all information, with means of bribery to shut off moving tongues and stolen whispers of words, so that Bex would never find out that the Baxter life wasn't exactly picture-perfect, but she figured that out all the same.

"Here's your guide," the clerk says in an annoyed voice. Bex raises her eyebrows, and takes off her sunglasses, lowering her gaze slowly as if in a condescending manner, and pulls the person along.

He was a lanky boy, probably the clerk's son by the looks of it, with a poof of red hair that stuck out near the cowlicks forming in the front; his eyes were a dark green and his pale, freckled skin only made his looks worse, if that was even possible, Bex thinks to herself. "Come along, boy," she commands, yanking him up the escalator.

It was an interesting device, but Bex doesn't pay much attention to the safety rules as she bounds up the moving vehicle, ignoring the strange looks that she received from the workers who were just going on their lunch breaks, their briefcases and name brand purses strapped closely to them, as if they suspect that the girl was going to steal from them —_again. _They have nothing to worry about, however. Bex doesn't care anymore about their purses, or their wallets, or even their valuables, though the pearl earrings that were hanging off the ears of a pudgy woman look especially appealing in the mid-afternoon light.

She has to redirect her attention to the flooring, as she pulls the boy along; he skids across the floors, his leather shoes piling up with dirt and other debris at the bottom. He looks as though he hadn't worked a day in his life —the darling son of a clerk, and perhaps a businessman, judging by the logos of his clothing. Bex makes her way into a storage closet, finally letting go of the boy as he realized that he better stick around if he didn't want to get in trouble. Nevertheless, it seems as though he has escaped before Bex has made her way into the secret passageways; though she was able to pull off miraculous heists, back in the older days, she was absolutely terrified of the spider-infested passageways, wondering if this was even worth it in the end. "I can do this," she grunts to herself, pulling through until the vent ends and she dangles off before dropping with a soft thud into the library.

_Nearly there, nearly done, _she reminds herself, walking through the shelves of countless books, picking some up at random and setting them down where they don't belong. Suddenly, Bex hears a loud bang in the distance and falls to the floor, trying to crawl her way out of this sticky situation. Then, she sees the flashing flashlights of a police officer, and is caught, deer in the headlights, pulled into the police car outside of the building.

Okay, maybe she had been lying —Bex wasn't exactly allowed to be going _anywhere_ public, at least not for the next decade.

.

Bex smirks —she'd finally shown these _bitches _that it's not exactly a good idea to send Rebecca Baxter, a girl with one of the richest daddies and most conniving lawyer mommies to a place full of nutjobs and assorted freaks, making her stick out like a carrot in a bowl of lettuce. She sits in the middle of the computer room, idling tapping away at the keys as the alarm starts going off at the west wing of the Academy. She lets out a small snicker; any idiot would know not to break out of this place, at least on the first day, even though, she thought to herself, it would be the perfect excuse.

She brushes a piece of lint off the table, and falls back into the bookshelves, a malicious smirk forming on her lips. Sooner or later, everybody would know about the scandals and secrets —after all, some secrets were just too hot to handle.

.

**a/n: **Argh, this is pretty bad but right now I'm in France, and then I just saw that I got **seventeen reviews (yay!) **so then I had to type something up, no matter how choppy and horrible the writing was. I apologize in advance, :) Well, the next chapter will be Cammie's, then Jonas's, and then the real story will start with much longer chapter than this, and more planned-out/beta-reading.

Thanks to **ViolinistOfTheNight, **_Three Flying Birds, _**ZachCammieAwesome, mnash123, Terry Cherry, wittykittylizzie, Autumn Herondale, **_Guest,_**ForeverAGallagherGirl135, **_Guest (2), _**miyame-chan, The terifical meee, XxCandyGirlxX, Book-luver-4-life, Uknowiloveu, GallagherGirls13BYE1DTS, and sparkle filled hearts **for reviewing!

With **fourteen reviews, **I promise to update by or before July 24th, 2013. Please review?

clara


	8. seven

**a/n: **So, I was listening to **let me down **by Kelly Clarkson while writing this (on repeat), to set the mood. Also, please check out my Zammie oneshot Gravity! Thanks, :)

;;

**Name: **Cameron Anne Morgan

**Birthday:** May 23rd, 1995

**Age: **Seventeen

**Reason for Admittance: **Repeated actions of shoplifting; vandalism.

::

She's always had this sort of guilt in her life.

Cammie walks home alone that night, kicking a few stones with the edge of her high heeled boot, unable to get a ride home from some friends who won't take someone in their car who doesn't wanted to be wasted and insane by the end of the crazy summer night. She's aware that school's going to be starting off soon, and can't wait for it. It would be some sort of escape from this messed up life she had created for herself.

Her mother had called around three hours ago, saying that it was an emergency; apparently, Cammie needed to pick her up from the casino. Somehow, however, she had gotten a ride home with a friend, but Cammie still was required to be at home in the next two hours. "I don't understand what this is," she muttered, walking with her head held down, before noticing the toilet paper trail, "—mother! Mom!"

"I'm fine, sweetie," a voice calls from one of the back rooms. Cammie walks calmly in, only to drop her belongings —quilted Chanel purse _and _all, gasping at the sight laid in front of her. Her mother was lying on the floor, with gambling cards all around her and balloons set up in the background, smiling at the sight, as if she admired what she had set up.

"Mom, I didn't know that you had it in you!" Cammie yells, her voice containing nothing but one would speak with towards a lowly animal, a slave, perhaps, back in older days, the same anger that made her _ohsoirresistible _to rich bitches and dirty thieves.

Her mother simply smiles, laying her head on the back of the chair, swirling one last glorious time. "I thought that you would be excited."

"Ha." Cammie walks forward, setting down the purse on one side of the island, and trying frantically to clean up the mess on the other side, where there was a spilled liquid, maybe orange juice but knowing her mother and the gambling problems, it would probably be some sort of alcohol. "That's true," she adds, hastily scrubbing at the mess, then staring at her mother with underlying jealousy in her gaze.

"Where's your friends?" Mrs. Morgan addresses, looking behind Cammie as if they would be hiding, peering around for the usual group of so called besties.

Cammie frowns, biting her lip anxiously, while her eyes flash around nervously, then focus on the cards, and regain the previous anger. "They didn't come...it doesn't matter, though. What are you _doing _with those cards? I thought that you were going to use the money for something more productive than _this._" The last part came out as a snarl; some people might have thought that she hated her mother, but it wasn't like that: it was more that she was concerned for her mental state.

Mrs. Morgan stands up, and brushes her hair with a manicured hand. "Where are they, then?"

A nervous chuckle escapes Cammie. "Do you think that I could ever invite them here, somewhere where I know that my life is going to be ruined every time I step into these doors? I just can't wait to go to College —to _Harvard _Medical, away from all of this crap." She shrugs.

Her mother sighs, running a hand through her messy dark hair, like she had done so many times as a younger woman, whenever thinking deeply. Though she was perhaps half wasted, and half on something, Cammie had always envied her mother and how she managed to look so put together even when the most dire of situation came across the family, like when her father had die.

There were problems, every now and then, but they were always able to make it through. Nevertheless, she couldn't wait until she was free from the city limits of the small town, enveloping herself where everybody would share common interests of making it big, in the world of medicine, where she could help people without having to tear her hair out in frustration, underneath the piercing gaze of almond shaped eyes, and the often beatings for coming back after curfew.

Finally, Mrs. Morgan decided to clear her throat. "What happened to your purse?"

Cammie grimaced, examining the punch stain. "I don't know. Somebody most have spilled something on it when I was at the party. It's okay though," she shrugs. "It's nothing too expensive that I can't replace."

"Cammie, darling," Mrs. Morgan only replies, sighing and looking just a little depressed. "There's something that I need to tell you. You know those funds that we had for Harvard?" Something was wrong, but she nodded, nonetheless. "I lost them; I just needed to go back into the casino, because this woman, she had all my money, jamming her quarters into _my machine! _And, I couldn't let her do that," her shoulders slump. "But, I lost, and I'm sorry, sweetie. Maybe community college works?"

All of a sudden, there's maniac sounding laughter interrupting the even balance, the horrified gaze of Cammie, shining with tears of sadness. "I still… can't believe… you… do that…" she managed to get out, between ragged breaths, setting down the wipes and falling onto a foldable chair.

Her mother sighs, setting down the cards and trying to make her way to her daughter, who only pushes her away; she tries to quickly propose another topic to distract it from this situation. "Can you go to community college?" This was the one question that she knew shouldn't be asked, but Mrs. Morgan didn't know what else to say, and it had bugged her endlessly—to the point where she'd rather say something like this rather than go back to the casinos, her guilty pleasure.

The ear-splitting laughter stops at once. "You don't understand, mom; you don't understand anything," Cammie replies, her eyes cast to the ground, barely acknowledging the reassurance which doesn't seem to even work, in the first place. Community college was not an option. She had worked too hard for Harvard, and now all of her dreams were crashing down. She stands up, not really steadily. "I'm going to find a way to pay for Harvard."

"What are you ta—" Mrs. Morgan questions.

"Let me finish," Cammie interrupts sharply, taking a deep breath. "If I don't find a way to go to Harvard Med, mom, that was just my whole _life_ and I'm nothing without it, and those dreams. And yes, dreams _do_ exist," she adds, before being cut off again. "I don't know how many side jobs and loans it's going to take, but I'm going to have to find a way to get back all of that money."

"Honey, I don't want to see you setting yourself up for failure," her mother only replies, sighing, "—it's not going to be easy getting five hundred thousand dollars back, unless you pull off some heist, which I'm already forbidding you from doing. Can't you just go to community college? That girl down the street, what's her name? Aretha, oh, right. See? She's doing just fine!"

Cammie sighs. "Aretha's in _jail_, Mom."

Her face crumples with sadness. She had waited so many for years for a perfect escape, and now her dreams were shattering, falling right out of her iron hard grip that had been slipping and slipping until there wasn't any grip left. There was no control in her life, and it was threatening everything she stood for. She contains her weary sobs with difficulty.

What was left her, now?

_Nothing_.

.

Bleary eyed, rubbing out the crust of her dishwater blue eyes, she awoke to the sound of alarms; peering outside of the plastic curtains, Cammie hurriedly rushed down the stairs upon noticing the various police vehicles that had gathered around the Morgan's driveway. Neighbours were already peering out of their blinds or coming out of their houses, curious at the commotion that was happening. She just wanted to yell at them, telling them to mind their our business, but it would be of no use; whenever there was any sort of scandal or gossip, even Cammie used to lightly participate in the spreading throughout the small town.

Two days ago, she had stolen some money —not much, but it was still a legal offense— from the bank, in efforts to pay for her college. It was the only way, and legal or not, she_had _to go to Harvard. Nobody understood why she cared so much, and perhaps, nobody ever would.

It wasn't small enough that everybody was a tight-knit Girl's Scout group, but not big enough that nobody knew each other; everybody tended to look out and care for one another. It was nice, in a way, but the niceness felt choking all of a sudden. "Mom?" She called, from upstairs, standing at the edge of the balcony. "What's wrong—"

Shadows cross across the room, and Cammie falls.

"It's just some of the symptoms of guilt, Mrs. Morgan. It can't be helped, your daughter's self-destructive behavior. We're going to have to contain her or send her somewhere before she starts harming other children. It just wouldn't be fair to the families here."

She wakes up to these words, and ends up flipping the card table from her hospital bed, and is contained under constant supervision for the next forty-eight hours —It still wouldn't be enough.

"We're going to have to send her somewhere else, Mrs. Morgan. I'm sorry for this, but we have to face the facts. Your daughter's a troublemaker."

* * *

**update: 1,753 words**! I can't wait until the next chapter is finished (which is Jonas's chapter), and then the actual story is going to start. Sorry, if it seems rushed or dragged out, at all. Also, does anybody watch **Dance Academy?** I just watched the third episode, third season, and oh, god. I feel so bad for Kat, near the end of the episode.

Thanks to **ViolinistOfTheNight, TerryCherry, XxCandyyGirlxX, mnash123, Autumn Herondale, Uknowiloveu, miyame-chan, wittykittylizzie, **_Guest, Guest (2), Guest (3), and_ **sparkle filled hearts** for reviewing, :) With **fourteen reviews, **I promise to update by or before July 28th, 2013. Please review?

Think that we can make it to a hundred reviews?

x clara


	9. eight

**SHOUTOUT: **This chapter is dedicated to **bubblegum04**, my hundreth reviewer! Thanks so much, guys, :) By the way, sapiosexual means attracted to someone with intelligence; nothing scary. :)

::

**Name: **Jonas Parker Nakagawa

**Birthday:** January 17th, 1995

**Age: **Seventeen

**Reason for Admittance: **Sapiosexuality

::

He's sitting in the back of library when he sees the sign.

Jonas is one of those typical children who spends his lunchtime not in the cafeteria, not in the toilet stalls that can easily be broken in, but in the reference section of the library where he can absorb himself in worlds where people actually care. It's taken six foster homes, more than a baker's dozen of school switches, and heartbreak after heartbreak to live in a place where he's sort of accepted, at least more than he's used to.

His newest mother, a tall, lanky woman who couldn't be older than thirty years old with hair that grayed, blonde highlights near the front, and a malicious sparkle in her right emerald eye had signed him up for this school —it was the worst, by far. He absorbs himself in the world of Thoreau and possibilities, the beauty of algebra and the consequences of hacking, and sometimes, Jonas manages to convince himself that this is all a bad dream, and he'll wake up to something more realistic, like having a twin brother with an amazing life, who suddenly decides that they should switch lives, without all the drama and the deaths, however.

It reads something along the lines of, _Are you incredibly smart, and looking for an opportunity to show your intelligence? If so, call the number below for more information!_

There wasn't any fine print beneath, so Jonas assumed that the information was credible. After all, everything in the Daily Herald was checked multiple times, and any mistakes were shown in one of the back pages, which he had checked —there were none. This was something that perhaps could get him out of this situation, so he decided to call the number. It turned out that it was some sort of prank set-up rich jocks, and their unsuspecting parents with endless amounts of cash.

Nevertheless, he skims the rest of the papers and pulls up a list of sketchy ads and phone numbers, calling each one at random. It's only the first day of September – an auspicious moment, really; he looks outside of the window and its protective bars. Though he sips on a warmer papaya mango smoothie, basking in the lamplight, there have been few days when he's felt as cold.

It would all be over soon, he knew. Everything would be over.

When he comes, the foster parents are in an argument – Jonas goes up to the communal bedroom, locking himself into one of the closets and pulls out a cellphone, dialing a number quickly. "Is this," he looks down at the piece of crumpled paper, "—Catherine Goode?"

There's silence on the other end. "Who's asking?" It comes out in a rough voice, that definitely couldn't be feminine under any circumstances, a slight Scottish accent concealed under a thicker English one.

"I'm Jonas, Jonas Nakagawa? Look, I saw your ad in the Daily Herald, and was wondering if I could apply for the job. Personally," he sighs, "I don't think that I fit the requirements of being that sort of intern, but I'm desperate for money, and I'll do anything, sir," Jonas adds after a second. "By any chance, do you think that I could speak to Catherine Goode, the head of the organization?"

"Look, kid, you don't know what you're getting yourself into," the man on the other line says. "I'm the automated voice dial for her." The voice becomes lower, until it's barely a whisper in his ear. "Catherine Goode's in _jail. _Or at least, she was in jail."

It's that moment when he hears someone storming away from the house, and slightly makes the closet door ajar, taking deep breaths as he listens to the familiar commands of the foster mother. The father, a man who was at least three inches shorter than average had beady eyes and a heavy guffaw, a Southern accent with every word he used to emphasize – the mother and the father had these usual spats, at least once a week, if not more often, but always seemed to get back together by the end of the week, usually out of need for stealing each other's salary and valuables.

There's someone coughing outside of the bedroom door, and Jonas wonders if he would able to hide himself in here until inspection was over – after all, it wasn't supposed to be until the next Friday.

His mind was running through the last inspection date – it had been, to say it nicely, _the worst thing ever. _He had lost his cool, overreacted, started yelling and saying things that ended up with him getting the punishment of school suspension for over a week; no matter how bad that place was, it was better than this home. What he had said, though, was the truth.

"Hello; Derek still here." So, that was the man's name; The voice echoed on the other side of the line, and Jonas knew that he had to make a decision. In the heat of the moment, he let out a small sigh, shrugged his shoulders and went back into the closet, for whoever longer he would be able to hide; footsteps thundered from the higher floors, all in an establish routine. _Robotic_, almost.

Jonas took a deep breath, trying to calm himself – _in and out, in and out _– but the constant repetition didn't seem to make any difference. "I'm still here, and I'm ready to talk to her." Then, he remembered. "Wait, what do you mean she's not in jail anymore? You can't just get out of jail; this isn't Azkaban, and there hasn't been any crazy storm in which the prison guards go loony!"

"Oh, it's complicated," Derek replied, his tone completely nonchalant as if he was answering something simple – which he wasn't. "Y'know?" Jonas frowned, feeling the instant urge to pull all of his stubby hair out, which was on the borderline of military buzz cut. As if somebody had suspected the situation he was in, the closet door slid smoothly open, and he saw the childish, chubby face of Kip; Rebekah's only_real _son, as she kept reminding.

He wasn't in the mood for a death wish, and said nothing. "Rebekah's looking for you," the boy said, grinning; though he was only five years old, Jonas felt the innate urge that this little boy was nothing but evil – as evil as the cutest toddler on the planet could be – or that could just be his jealousy.

"Coming," Jonas groaned – time to face the music; before he went, he heard the words muttered, _Gallagher-Blackthorne_; then, the call was cut off.

/

The third day of September is perhaps the day that some mark as a birthday, perhaps the day of a death of a fellow friend or family member, even a simple first day of school for some late individuals, yet Jonas Nakagawa is not a normal person as he celebrates today as the day he has been admitted into the most notorious "criminal" school for teenagers.

Everybody _must _have heard of his name, at one point or the other. After all, it was plastered all over newspapers, especially The Daily Herald which stated that he was a child genius, and that if all children were like him, America would be a much more successful country. Then again, Jonas calls himself more of a mad genius, because child prodigies are usually stuffy little people who enjoy playing chess.

He had been searching the newspapers, all of the ads – even sifting through the shampoo ones; _Nivea, What Men Want! _– for the past two days, and Jonas had thought that he would have found something, but nothing. And, no. Nivea Shampoo coupons weren't on his list for Santa.

"And, how exactly, Mr. Nakagawa, are you supposed to be admitted into the Blackthorne-Gallagher Academy for Troubled," the man looks down for a moment, unaware of the rest of the name, then continues, as if he had never forgotten, "—Young Men and Women? You don't exactly look like a criminal to me."

Jonas sighs. "I'm sapiosexual." He just hopes that nobody's smart enough – or will suspect anything – about the word, which is probably what would happen.

The admittance officer isn't exactly sure of what the definition of that word means, but doesn't exactly want to seem insignificant by asking a sixteen year-old the definition of a simple-seeming word; then again, the word sounds dangerous enough. "Sure, Mr. Nakagawa. You can be in the Academy. I'll have the packet sent out to you in a few days. Goodbye."

As soon as man hangs up the phone, Jonas does some weird happy dance, turning up his radio on high as he sings along to the lyrics of _American Pi_ – the version with the digits of Pi – dancing, and swirling in the tight expanse, ignoring the weird looks from the foster siblings.

Screw them; He's_ officially_ cool.

* * *

**update: **This was really a lot of fun to write, :) thanks for all the reviews, guys! Well, so the next time that I update (which will probably be veryvery soon), it's going to be the story of them actually meeting; I'm actually excited for that, since it's going to be normal length chapters, around 4,000 to 6,000, if I can manage to have patience. Also, LizJonas shippers, don't worry; they'll happen sometime later, too.

clara


	10. nine

**the defiant ones  
**chapter one

Around three miles south of the idyllic suburb of Roseville, Virginia lay the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy; the golden foothills of the lower levels extend to trickles of warm water and the occasional glimpses of wildlife that gleam under the subtle touches of sunlight, darting near and far. On occasion, visitors might see colorful creatures which leap from tree to tree with small pieces of metals embedded into soft skin; outside of the gilded golden gates, there as much more than meets the eye. Inside of the white gates lie a platoon of guards ―they stand, marching briefly at half past consecutive hours; red and gold uniforms shine underneath sunbeams, weapons and staffs held grimly in crude hands. There's glimmer of lights shining through the ballroom, opposite ends of the academy matching, the earsplitting sounds of glass crashing concealed by soundproof walls; after all, to keep a tight ship running, secrets must be kept.

Students flock into the Academy from the front, back, and side entrances at all hours, typically as individuals, keeping their heads down as to not draw attention to themselves. Some of them carry suitcases, while others have their personal servants and butlers at beck and call, following suit. Though some of the students are whip thin, and could easily pass off as a model from Vogue, while others have a less beanpole like stature and thick-rimmed glasses, they all carry a certain air to them; an air of troublemaking, the reason why they have all been admitted to the Academy, in the first place.

Four miles away from the Gallagher Blackthorne Academy, around Mile Ten or so, but not before the humble hamlet of Roseville is reached, is a vehicle ―it drives not that steadily, bumping every now and then and falling into potholes, flat tires being replaced frequently by the bus driver. Animals, especially the vast selection of creatures, like lizards, skitter from the road. Cammie Morgan sits in one of the front seats, having caught the fastest ride to her newest school for juvenile delinquents. "Excuse me, sir," she stands up, ignoring the stranger looks from an old woman who reclines in her seat, sipping an eight dollar latte with a smile on her face like she doesn't have a care in the world, "―how long is it going to be until we reach Roseville?"

"Sooner if you sit down, miss," the driver sighs, as if the obnoxious teenager hadn't asked the same question repeatedly, for the past eight hours; Cammie gets the sign, and sits down reluctantly, crossing her legs and nervously picking on the fraying edges of her skirt, glancing every now and then at the bracelet on her wrist, dangling loosely unlike the tighter friendship bracelet, elastic however, fits snugly around the narrow bone.

She pours herself a glass of water from the machine near the front of the bus, hanging off the edge; she people watches for the next ten minutes or so, though nothing that interesting is occurring outside of the tinted windows, which still reflect heat upon the slightest touch. There's a man sitting near the back of the bus who's looking suspicious enough, though more as though he was pulled over and given a DUI, and forced to work with traveling in a vehicle; his staggering footsteps when the scenic pathway stop comes along, are reason enough to assume something like that. A girl plays violin near the middle of the bus, leaving a small case open for donations ―she's already collected more than a hundred dollars, but judging by the Ella Moss vintage dress and diamond jewelry set, the girl doesn't seem as though she's desperate for money.

Cammie plays with the edges of her fraying skirt, and wishes that she should have worn something more simple to this orientation; after all, the grim picture of the Academy wasn't exactly the place where she wished to don her best earrings and necklace. After all, this was a school for juvenile delinquents she was going to; somebody was bound to steal the set by the end of the dinner, no matter how many security cameras and supervising adults were set up around the parameters of each and every room.

There's a yellow bus station down the road, and Cammie notices a group of teenage girls around the same age that she is traveling together, the click clack of their high heels sounding as the bus comes to a small halt. As they walk onto the bus, they make it a point to sit as far away from Cammie as possible, only reluctantly making the decision to sit rather than stand and fall immediately to the floor when there are no other seats except the one next to Cammie. They must have heard the news, she thought to herself; Cammie hadn't expected the Gallagher Blackthorne Academy to be so much of a big deal, but apparently it was now.

The woman behind her sits forward, "Excuse me, miss? I'm Barbara Walters: the news correspondence for the Daily Herald; you must have heard of me?" Cammie makes a close inspection, and lowers her tinted sunglasses; she decides to ignore the CHUNKY MONKEY shirt that the woman wears.

"―'lo, Mrs. Walters. And, my attorney told me that I have the right to remain silent." She holds onto her purse, and turns around quickly, focusing instead on the sunlight, the beautiful colors of the sunset blending together like they were meant to be that way. Cammie notices her reflection in the window, and purses her lips; she could have been going to Harvard Law, right now; suddenly, the sunset doesn't look quite as beautiful.

Deciding to keep quiet until the destination is reached turns out not to the best idea. The bus comes to a sudden halt right outside the town or Roseville, and Cammie's dumped on the side of the road, yelling in a hoarse attempt at the driver to let her get back on the bus ― it doesn't stop for a milsecond. When the dust fades, the town of Roseville becomes clearer; there aren't skyscrapers or commuting people; it isn't the opposite, with an _Amish lifestyle, _on the other hand, however.

She checks her watch, and swears underneath her breath, realizing that it's already half past seven o' clock in the afternoon. The orientation, according to the packet that the police officer had _ohsokindly _handed over with a smug grin, was around eight o' clock in the evening, along with the evening meal which Cammie wouldn't miss for the world. Even though it was some sort of Academy for assorted juvenile delinquents and other criminals, it was rumoured that their Crème Brûlée was to _die for _and at the orientation dinner, unlimited amounts of food would be served, something that she was looking very forward to.

However, if she wasn't able to actually make it to the place itself, and wash herself off, find her new dormitory room and the like, there would be no dreamy food, only the leftovers and crumbs left behind.

Walking through the town's streets, the landscape stretching like everlasting heartbreak until it is erased completely by the mirages of the pursuit of happiness location's found; there's only a small girl visible to Cammie. She has long brown hair which reaches past her shoulders, fraying in the wind and falling to pieces beneath a snug grimy grey beret, her head turned sideways as she hums a melody, holding out a small velvet hat in regret ― there is no need to look to know it is empty. By the time that Cammie approaches the girl, she has disappeared, running down the alleyways as if she was somehow scared of her.

Then, Cammie remembers, and continues down the alleyways, lost in the maze trying to find her way; you have to be lost, to be found. Throughout the hour, or the passing time that seems even shorter as she comes to dead ends, to men holding beer glasses, to young children who flock to their mothers, afraid of the teenage criminal. She's looking in a garbage can ― a small attempt of scavenging, for well, _anything _would suit her taste buds ― when Cammie hears a noise.

It's a small rustling, but enough to startle her; not something created by a fully grown adult, on the other hand. "Hello?" She calls out, one hand extended into the looming darkness and the other reaching onto a small container of pepper spray. "Is anyone there?" There was somebody; though, nobody seems to come out. Cammie walks back towards the garbage can, continuing with the weak attempts of scavenging.

That's when somebody grabs her tightly from the back, pressing their soft hand to her feeble lips, chapped out of salt stains and crimson fingertips. She feels breathless all of a sudden, falling into beautiful eyes and a tight grip that immediately lets her go. "Sorry," the boy says with a sheepish smile, "―I thought that you were someone else."

"It's okay," Cammie replies, still left a little breathless. "I'm Cammie," she introduces herself. "I'm going to school here, and just moved."

He smiles back, his eyes glued onto hers. "It's okay; I'm Josh. So," he says, with a slight laugh, "―what's a girl like you doing here, scavenging in all these trash cans?" The two of the continue down the alleyway until they reach the end, turning right into the darkening night; the thoughts of endless amounts of food do not seem to cross Cammie's head once throughout the conversation and invigorating walk.

She learns that he has a freaky weird obses

They carry on a conversation until it's nearly eight o' clock and Cammie takes this as her opportunity to leave; to where they've walked, it's barely a mile away from the Academy and they say their goodbyes. She walks down the road, with a smile on her face and barely three minutes later she realizes that she probably should have returned the buttoned jacket that's draped carefully around her small shoulders, cloaked in warmness and happiness. Thoughts float throughout her head, but she pushes them to the side and focuses on the fact that she's already going to be late to the dinner.

Hopefully, she would be able to sneak in through one of the back entrances; after all, she was a master at finding secret passageways and the like. Maybe her roommates would be kind enough to bring her something from dinner but then again that was probably asking too much. She had probably missed out on the friend making opportunities ―nevertheless, hopefully there would be more chances. She would be living her for the next three to four years, or however long she would be forced to live at the Academy until its teachers finally decided that she was ready to not be such a juvenile delinquent anymore, and go back to the real world.

By then, she would be long past the admission age for an undergraduate student at Harvard; maybe, there were some law classes at Gallagher-Blackthorne, and the credits could be transferred and Cammie would be allowed to start the grad program ―something that she honestly couldn't wait for. Coming across the school around twenty minutes later, she gasps in shock.

It's much better than she had expected; the mental image of a dusty rundown Academy is immediately replaced with something much more exquisite.

The Academy is surrounded by ivy covered walls with a wrought-iron gate at the beginning of a half mile long driveway, guards standing outside of the building barely blinking or moving in the slightest. Cammie notices the roof shingles on the top of the building, and wonders what their purpose serves; she's read in the introductin packet that they're meant to stop people from coming in, but she assumes it's to stop people from escaping. Nevertheless, she wouldn't try to escape, at least for now ―the better she behaved, the less time she would have to spend in the place, in the first place. However, she couldn't help but be excited.

Whoever had donated the money to build the Academy must have been extremely wealthy; nevertheless, she can't help but notice the sensors that check for explosives, and the parking lot is empty as if the cars and limousines had been swallowed whole, something that actually wouldn't be too surprising. The grounds are manicured, obviously having the appearance of a prestigious school; she wondered what the inside would be like, glancing at the helicopter landing pads in the back.

Making her way stealthily towards the back, Cammie noticed the blaring alarms that went off as soon as she entered the buildings ―the hacking part wasn't too hard; neither was the gymnastic movements that she had devised to sneak through the electrocuting rays. There must have been some guards at the other side of the hallway, but once inside, Cammie wasn't about to question their disappearance.

The inside of the academy was even more magnificent, with smooth mahogany banisters and sweeping stairs; Cammie would soon find some sort of secret passageway to hide in. According to the brochure, the entire school was constructed from stone and oddly shaped stained glass windows, but it looked more moder in a way. When the alarms started blaring, the lights went out and Cammie was left in the dark, blindly groping for any object.

There's nothing that she's able to grab onto ―she hears the sounds of high heels clacking on freshly polished linoleum floors.

_Somebody's coming, _Cammie thinks to herself; without another thought in mind, she blindly reaches for the blunt instrument set on top of the cabinet.

/

(The next time that her eyes open, it's to an dormitory room.)

Cammie immediately blinks her eyes, wipes away the crust forming near the edges and bolts up in bed, wondering how she had managed to find her way here ― sleepwalking probably wasn't the answer ― traces of food remain in a permanent pattern, circling her rosy lips. She reaches for a flashlight that's beneath a pile of books, blinking the light several times before it stays steady.

"Turn the light out; we're trying to sleep _here_," a loud, obnioxious voice echoes throughout the room and Cammie stands up, banging her head on the ceiling of the barely five feet ceiling. "I said, turn out the lights!" The voice continues drifting and fading as if had never been there, in the first place.

The lights of the room flicker on and off, filling the room with an eerie look ― it's the first look that she has, only getting features from the flashes; they're something across the lines of _fire blazing under heated stones, blazing without control _or _messy bedsheets torn across the room, hair splayed across messily _or even the first thing that she had noticed, the fact that some of her roommates weren't of the same gender as her; that was definitely uncalled for, she thought to herself.

"I'm sorry, and you are who?" The lights stay open, and one of the girls rises from her thread count mattress; Cammie associates her with the campaign commercials and fake beaming whites that had premiered on television for the past three years. "Macey _McHenry? _What the hell are you doing here? I can't believe that daddy didn't bail you out of jail, with all the money from scandals."

Macey raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "Nice to meet you, too. And, I'll have you know, I'm not looking forward to this room settlement either ― I had asked for a single room, but _apparently _you have to share things these days." She visibly shudders at the words, eyes barely accustomed to the dingy light which shines brighter than the flashlight, on the other hand.

"Cameron Morgan," Cammie offers, feeling a little bad about the harsh words she had mentioned moments prior, "―but you can call me Cammie. Why are you here?" The question was of plain curiosity; she moved to the edge of her mattress, hands nervously fidgeting with the blankets.

A gentle breeze floats in through the windows, nipping at slender spines and bare shoulders; leaves rustle, agitated. "The only _normal _reason to be admitted into a prison like this ―_shoplifting__," _Macey blatantly lies, avoiding all forms of eye contact. "So, there was this gorgeous purse at Saks and Daddy wouldn't buy it for me, so I just had to buy it, y'know? If I didn't, there was no that I'd be able to survive the fall social season."

_You're lying, _Cammie wanted to say; instead, she replied, "Same, here. Not for those sort of reasons, though, and it was more of stealing money than shoplifting."

"That's fine," Macey shrugs, looking a little less angry and slightly more curious. "Y'know, you don't have to tell me everything, or even _anything. _Just because we're going to be roommates for the next three or so years, it doesn't mean that we have to do family bonding exercises," she wrinkles her nose in distaste ―the family bonding vacations for the McHenry's had always ended up with her father kissing babies, her mother waving, and her in pigtails while holding a lollipop in one hand, the perfect American family that always kept on pretending; keep calm and carry on, they say.

"Well, if we're going to be stuck _here_ for the next three years," Cammie says, "―I might as well become allies with someone who's not a freaky nerd or came here because they're a neurotic freak with insecurity issues, on crack?"

Macey presses her right hand to her chest, faking a touched facial expression, managing to look the slightest bit sincere. "Aww, thanks. That's the sweetest thing that anybody's ever said to me!"

Cammie can't help but breaking down in a fit of laughter, because Macey's voice is just purely dripping of sarcasm; soon enough, the two of them are laughing and it's as though nothing has changed from their previous lives, and they're still anywhere but a juvenile delinquent school. Within a few minutes, the other members of the room awaken and the two immediately fall silent ―just because they're allies, it doesn't mean that they'll ruin their previous reputations by being the new Alison DiLaurentis and take in those unfortunate souls, turning them into something worth talking about.

"Shut the bloody hell up," a British accent floats through the room, "―or I'll just have to come over them and knock you two unconscious, so the rounds of giggling will stop." The girl's draping herself off the edge of a burnt sienna colored couch, legs and arms in an uncomfortable position.

Groans and murmurs start. "I second that notion," a smooth voice comes from across the room; a male one, most probably. "I'll do much worse―"

"Who are you kidding, Winters? The only crime that you've ever committed is wannabe-ism. That's right, you're a wannabe, a WANNABE." The taunting voice is high-pitched, and becomes much lower and softer after a soft patter of footsteps are heard outside of the dormitory door.

Cammie tries to ignore all of the voices, pressing two of her ring fingers into both ears, wishing that the Academy would have allowed iPods and other musical devices so that she could block out all of this incessant chatter and actually find some piece of mind ―something that she knew she wouldn't be having for a very long time.

/

"BREAKFAST TIME!" There's a woman standing near the door, dressed very formally with a long hoop styled skirt that reaches past her ankles, a Spanish pattern draped across the edges and falling toward the sleek Mary Janes; a long sleeved sweater is worn with a diamond necklace looking quite valuable at the time, but the effort of stealing it and using the money for college wasn't as appealing as another hour of sleep.

Cammie was surprised at how comfortable it could be sleeping here ―what with all the noises and chatter; but the rest of her roommates had quieted down around two in the morning, and the four hours were more than she could be expected to sleep back home.

_Home, _she thought to herself. Cammie hadn't been reminded of that some homesick feeling that she had felt when she went to Camp Timberlee all the way back in fifth grade, but the factor of loneliness and needing of warmth was yet to come. After all, at home, there was nothing for her left but an empty bank fund, criminal accusations with people pointing fingers wrongly, and a neurotic mother with an insane gambling obsession. _Nothing._

The woman still stands there, hands on hips, ringing the bell until the rest of the room has risen, rubbing the sleep out of weary eyes. "If you want any of last night's leftovers ―for those were _actually there_," she glares at Cammie,"―then you'd better get out of bed faster than the other delinquents here, in uniform."

The door banged shut, and Cammie was the only one to spring to her bag, immediately looking for somewhere to change into the hideous school uniform before she realized that nobody else was even bothering to get out of bed, except for a lanky boy on the other side of the room, who didn't exactly look like he belonged here. "Guys, wake up!" She starts with yelling, then manages to work with the radio and blare some godforsaken tune.

"Can you turn it up _any _louder? It's not just quite annoying yet," an emerald-eyed boy rolls his eyes, before smirking and getting out of bed, winking at Cammie. "Let's play a little game," he whispers in her ear; she takes the hint.

After a few rounds of _Friday, _some rendition of Dubstep music, and _I Love It _― the rest of the roommates have risen, though only a few of them have made the decision to start folding their sheets; because Daddy's servants aren't going to do it for you, brat; and dressing, not even feeling the least bit conscious about themselves.

Though she was looking forward to breakfast, Cammie realized that they would probably be too late. By the time they had reached the dining hall, breakfast was already thirty minutes over and they were rushed to their own individual therapy sessions, handed schedules and a piece of cheddar cheese. Being treated like a mouse wasn't exactly how she had expected this place to be, but it could only get better from here, right?

_Wrong._

.

.

.

**tbc.**

**.**

**playlist (on repeat): **storm song [by phidel; the disappearance of the girl]; paint the pictures [by verona; the green apple]; everywhere [by michelle branch; the spirit room]; nothing's going to stop me now [by olivia holt; girl vs. monster]; ain't so sweet [by katie armiger; confessions of a nice girl]

**a/n: **Gosh, thank you so much for all of the reviews! Hopefully, you liked this chapter, and it was worth the wait; it's around 4,000 words, maybe a little more and I'll try to stay with this length throughout the entire story; please tell me if there's anything you didn't like, and I'll try to fix it as soon as possible.

Thanks to **ViolinistOfTheNight, sparkle filled hearts, wittykittylizzie, NYCdream, bubblegum04, Book-luver-4-life, TerryCherry, ForeverAGallagherGirl135, mnash123, miyame-chan, XxCandyygirlxX, Uknowiloveu, , small-town hearts, labdal92, ddanenanane, konstantines, cxzcammieandzammieftw, & angelsfallen 32 **for your reviews!


	11. ten

**SHOTOUT: Thanks to Rachel (sparkle filled hearts) and Liz (wittykittylizzie) for reviewing every single chapter so far, :) Also this chapter is dedicated to Chloe (websterwolvesrock), my 200th reviewer!\TALLY: 4,024 words.**

**the defiant ones  
**chapter two

Time did not seem to be flying by as Cammie and the rest of the first years went through their rigorous and demanding schedules — classes began with the typical speeches — from teachers and professors and classes didn't seem to get interesting until halfway through the day, one class before noon and the excuse of a lunch or break period for those who didn't wish to consume the delicacies of grub and vitamin water bottles. The previous classes of the day included something about camouflaging yourself to different environments, a skill at which Cammie didn't quite seem to master within the fifty minute span. Then, along came arithmetic, something that she was used to but instead of the typical trigonometry and weekly tests, they were replaced by large CLASSIFIED folders, and the directions to compile the statistics into an Excel document.

By the time the last morning class came around, Cammie and her mind were exhausted. Barely any of the students are paying attention to the stringent teacher who's wearing something that looks as though she lived in the 1800's, though it does give off a glamorous style. Coming earlier to class might have worked better in Cammie's favor, as she was now stuck near the front of the classroom, where there were barely any students. She's staring at the clock, merely twiddling her thumbs when a stick comes crashing down onto her knuckles, and she immediately winces and pulls her hands away from the beaten down desk quickly.

"God, what was _that _for?" she asks, tracing a circular pattern quickly over her nails, and placing them in the lukewarm water, the only acceptable drink that this Academy provided for all students besides something that tasted like a mixture of squished blueberries and soggy granola bars. Her phone starts ringing from the back of her purse, and she immediately starts fishing around for it, until the purse is grabbed from the back of her chair. "I really need to get that," Cammie notes aloud, in a perfectly honest manner, extending her hand for the purse to return.

The only thing that comes back is another whack with the plastic ruler. "Maybe you'd like a mani-pedi, too," the professor said in a no nonsense voice; Cammie looked up to see an older woman with a kind face, but gnarled features, much like the ones of the cat, with a small nametag reading _ONYX _who was perched upon a stack of papers on Professor Buckingham's desk.

Cammie sighs, filing one of her nails — a gift from her roommate, and new ally, Macey, who was currently performing the same task near the back of the classroom —, and smiles, looking up, "Actually, thank you _so much! _I would really love that! Seriously, I need the relaxation time." A chorus of giggles and laughter choruses around the room, and Cammie looks around, honestly confused about why people were laughing in the first place. "I'm not joking, people," she mutters. "This is a_serious _matter. My nails are chipping." More laughter choruses.

The teacher only presses her fingers to her temples and goes to the front of the classroom, reaching into one of her disoriented drawers in which papers and cat litter have a certain stench that starts filling the room; some of the more clueless students plug their noses until they're heavily reprimanded by Professor Buckingham, who takes out a pill of aspirin and pops it into her mouth, and then decides to take three more tablets and downs the medicine with a warm glass of clean water, something that the rest of the students here would only consider a luxury for graduation and orientation days. "Well, Cameron, darling—"

"It's Cammie, actually," she corrects, her dishwater blue eyes wide; by now, she's aware that she's doing this to spite the teacher, but it's actually quite amusing to get a reaction out of the woman who looks as though she's about to explode with anger, one of the veins throbbing largely near the top of her forehead. "But, continue?"

Professor Buckingham reaches into the pocket of her frilly dress, and pulls out what looks like a pad of slips. "Look, darling," she murmurs, with a smug grin, almost as if she was trying to mimic the obnoxious, rebellious teenager in front of her, "—how about I write you a pass to the principal's office, and then she can redirect you to the mani-pedi place down the street, m'kay?"

Some of the students in the room titter nervously; some of these were repeat second years, and knew the wrath of the principal, especially towards wild children who acted as though they knew everything, and deserved everything, while in truth, they deserved _nothing. _Professor Buckingham wrote up the pass, and placed it on top of the binder and books that Cammie had already vandalized, also known as decorating, with large colorful book covers and stickers; she smiled, and left the classroom.

Walking through the hallways, Cammie notices the fact that on the pass was written the words _DISASTER PACKAGE _and _DETENTION MAJOR _which didn't seem like anything revolving around the topic of cuticle care. She had been in trouble several times before, especially in all of those private and public schools she had been suspended or expelled from, but this was the first time when she seriously felt afraid. One of the kids sitting near the front of the classroom, before class, had warned her about the evil principal, and how she lived in a lair.

Cammie had only scoffed, and focused her attention on decorating and doodling — _she means her etiquette notebook — _but had caught on to some of the last words that the kid was saying. Apparently, this principal lived in a lair, with golden dragons swooping around the dungeons (something that Cammie actually believed, just for a moment), at her beck and call to eat up the nasty students that disobeyed the rules. She had pasty skin, dead, lifeless eyes, and much resembled a zombie, or some other creature of the walking dead.

Walking towards the principal's office, which was on the second floor of the building, Cammie passes by the several rows of lockers and classrooms, and sneaks some glances at the classrooms that read off limits; some students were learning how to assemble guns and shoot at practice targets while others were dissecting frogs and mixing toxic chemicals together to create the biggest reaction. Cammie wasn't exactly sure how this was supposed to help juvenile delinquents get back on track, and off crack, but it sure looked like a lot of fun — she wanted to stick around, she decided, for the future years when things like _that _would happen.

What was this school, anyway? It sure wasn't what it seemed to be. Nevertheless, she soon enough came across the building's front office and knocked on the wooden door, watching it fall down and then walked nervously in while the dust settled. "I didn't do anything," she swears, laughing a little to herself. This place seriously needed a makeover, and so did its teachers. "I seriously didn't do anything."

"I believe you." The younger woman sitting at the front desk smiles, even though as soon as she turns away, she mentally gives Cammie the _hopefully, you'll be suspended; good riddance_ look that she's been given from at least a dozen secretaries from around the country. "Why are you here, anyway?" she asks, in a casual voice; upon a second glance, Cammie doesn't recognize the face but notices that the face is much younger than most teachers around here.

The typical stereotype of a secretary, who smells like old perfume and eats red apples and granola bars, with a sweet old lady name didn't apply in this case. Cammie sighs before replying, "I got a detention and disaster package pink slip from Professor Buckingham." The secretary nodds, slowly, motioning for Cammie to take a seat in the next room.

The next room was already filled with kids — _most of them, _Cammie recognizes from her classes in the morning, primarily first years — and for a while, she felt better about not being the only one to be in trouble. One of the teenagers is wearing a bag over their head, and rubber bands line up his thin wrists, cutting off all forms of blood circulation; another one was just sleeping in the chair; a group of haughty looking girls looked as though they could care less about getting in trouble, though one of the latter of the members was sitting on the edge of her chair, nervously fidgeting with the cellphone she must have snuck in through security.

By the time that she was called into the principal's office, her fingers were nervously fidgeting with the fraying edges of a thin plaid skirt while her feet were agitated, tapping a repeated drumming pattern over and over again. She slowly knocked on the door, and it swung open quickly; within a moment, the woman in the swirling chair turned around, and smiled. "Hello."

"_Mom?"_

_._

"So, let me get this straight," Macey recapps; the two of them are sitting in the middle at one of the long tables during the lunch break, "—your mom, the one with the gambling problems and horrible parenting habits, is the _headmistress_ of this dingy place?"

Cammie is too horrified to say another word, just slowly nodding while she nearly chokes on the glass of dingy water. Though this Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy was well funded — the donations were the main reason why the school was opened, in the first place —, they really should have used the school's Chef (rumor had it that he cooked in the White House) to create some delicious, fluffy masterpiece or something with caffeine to get the students through the day.

"I don't believe you," Macey continues, impertinently. "It just doesn't make sense; you said that she was living at home, and was barely able to stop gambling. How was she able to take over a school, with all these funds? No offense, but my dad tried to do that and it didn't work, and he's _way _richer than you and your family." It was the honest truth.

Cammie shrugs. "No offense taken. Can we just please talk about something else, _anything?" _She takes a moment to think before walking over to the dining table near the front of the room; a horde of upperclassmen are standing around, but immediately clear the way when she walks there; Macey follows behind her, looking the slightest bit condescending towards the older kids, who immediately scram upon a single glance. _Things are way too easy around here_, she thinks to herself.

"How about the boy who's staring at you?" Cammie pauses, nearly dropping her green apple back into the platter before slowly tilting her head to the direction in which Macey was glancing over at, carelessly.

Sure, enough, she was right — wasn't she always? — and there was a boy who was staring at her, the same one with the emerald eyes and the brooding smirk which she had a feeling she was going to grow to despise over the years; after all, they shared a room together. "I don't really care," Cammie redirects her attention towards the apple and scrutinizes its dulled surface, as though it was the most interesting in the room while Macey only lets out a small chuckle.

"Don't look now, but there's another person staring at you," Macey continues; Cammie rolls her eyes, a muscle that she was sure that she was going to strain over the next three to four years. Of course, everybody would be staring at her — it wasn't a vain remark — because the news must have already spread that she was the headmistresses's daughter; nobody besides Macey believed, or even tried to to speak to her, that she wasn't getting special treatment. She had been sleeping in the same small beds with the uncomfortable, lumpy pillows and nonexistent mattress fluffed; eating the same tasteless grub, breathing in the same dingy air.

She hoped that everything would settle down after a while. Though Cammie had a knack for getting attention in all of the right — _and sometimes the wrong _— times and places, it didn't usually work out to her benefit when the problems starting rising over and over again; she had a feeling that nothing would be the same. Why did her mom have to be the headmistress? She thought to herself, wasn't it bad enough that she embarrassed her daughter countless times? Especially since every week, Cammie had been forced to beg the landlord to give her another week to collect enough money to pay her mother's rent; it was the only real reason why Cammie had been happy to go to the Academy, to escape her mom.

And what did her mom do to ruin everything? Follow her there. "You know, you're actually kind of lucky," Macey remarks, spinning her silver fork around the steel cut oats and then deciding to dump out the majority of her lunch into the trash can; her seven hundred calorie diet had to stay constant, if not anything else.

Cammie nearly spits out the food — the horrible taste wasn't the only reason, however. "What do you mean, I'm _lucky?" s_he emphasizes. "My social life, not that I even had any before, is officially ruined." She mixes the food around her plate, and gladly dumps the remainders in the nearly full trash can, and walks with Macey back to their dorm room. Though the schedule was rigorous, they were given thirty minutes of break time per day; the times varied, however.

"You actually have parents who—"

She wasn't quite sure what triggered the emotions to start running, but once she starts running in the opposite direction of the great hall, she can't stop herself from continuing. By the time that Cammie had stopped, only minutes had passed but she has already fallen over onto the floor, holding her knees for dear life and panting. And, then she's falling and spinning and she can't quite place where she is anymore. Breaking out doesn't seem like an option that had come to her mind before, but maybe if she was able to run away nobody would be able to find her and control her anymore — there was nothing more that she wanted. The alarms from the Academy were blaring loudly, and Cammie realizes that she was already outside; quickly, she tries sneaking inconspicuously into the dormitory room, and nobody seemed to find her.

Out of the blue, she hears loud footsteps and ragged voices coming from a nearby hallway, and as she looks around, Cammie realizes that there is nowhere to hide; none of the doors have locks — _something about suicide _— and the footsteps were coming closer. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and she would be caught. Tears starting forming in her eyes once she realizes what was going to happen.

Though the Academy wasn't exactly the ideal place where she wished to spend what could have been her senior year and the first three years of college, it was the only place left.

It was the place where all of the rejects and juvenile delinquents ended up at the end of the day; suddenly, she sees a rough hand pull her smaller one behind a tapestry and she holds her breath until the footsteps had faded. It took some time, and scrunched up, curled into the fetal position, Cammie could have sworn that this Academy didn't have secret passageways and hiding spots, but lo and behold, here was one of them. Perhaps, it was one of many. Maybe this place wouldn't be that bad, especially if nobody figured out that she had gone outside without permission.

"Were you _trying_ to get yourself killed?" She instinctively feels around in the dark before a candle is lit, and she makes out the emerald green eyes.

"Oh," she says, in a disappointed tone, "—it's you." Then, Cammie remembers to answer the question, rude as it was, "And, I wasn't trying to get myself killed; I just needed to run, and clear my brain of everything. I used to run a lot back home, but I don't have a home anymore and all I wanted was just a family, y'know? Is it too much to ask for?" She rambles on and on, because it's the only thing that's keeping her from having a nervous breakdown; lucky enough for her, she's deathly afraid of almost anything, especially the dark, and Cammie's never felt more afraid than now.

She realizes that she's told this stranger a lot more than she's told anyone ever before, and she doesn't even know his name. "And, it's like there's nothing else left in the world except the running and even though your heart is pounding and your face is rushing with blood, and you know that you're probably going to trip over that curb in the corner you still do it anyway, because you can almost taste victory when it's over—"

"I love that corner!" Cammie replies; she knows that she's sounding weird and strange, but she can't help herself. It's almost as if she doesn't have to hide her true personality, and hide it behind fake layers of _popularity and things like that _right now, because he understands her well enough. "And, it's like you can't settle on just this one feeling and everything's a blur, but it's a colorful blur and you swear that when you lie down at the end, and you just collapse, you can see colors."

"Half the time you feel as though you just want to break into tears, and it seriously drives you insane, but looking back on it, it's like there was nothing else in the world except you and your feet plodding through the darkness, until you see the dawn—"

"And it's only just for one minute, but it's perfection and you know that you won't ever see anything like that again. And, sometimes, you just stare and stare and stare at the starry night sky even if it's broad daylight, you just stare at the clouds and you tell yourself that you won't end up crying, weeping, bawling, anything but then all your emotions just start rushing—"

Het else. "I'm Zach."

"Cammie," she replies, realizing soon enough that the footsteps have faded, and peers outside of the woven tapestry, admiring it in the newfound light which nearly burns her eyes, though she had only been in the dark for a minute or so. She immediately stops at the familiar face of Macey, who's frowning slightly at the scene that's unfolding in front of her.

Cammie blushes and immediately scoots as far away as possible from Zach without falling out of the passageway — which isn't exactly a _secret passageway _anymore. "It's not what it looks like," she only says, to Macey who's looking at Zach in this sort of longing way but trying to make sure that he gets the message that she's so over him, but it's not exactly working out well for her.

"McHenry," Zach notes, climbing out, following suit with Cammie's actions.

"Sorry to interrupt your little heart to heart session, Goode," Macey replies smugly, smirking back, and they look at each other, each daring the other to say anything else; Cammie stands awkwardly near the side of the room, and tries to slowly inch away before Macey pulls her back as Zach has already left the room, scoffing slightly. They walk in silence, back towards the dormitory rooms and Cammie can't help but notice the look on Macey's face or the fact that there are countless security cameras, on red, monitoring them at all times. Maybe they actually had seen her running away, but nobody had said anything yet.

Perhaps, this was one of the privileges of being the headmistress's daughter; Cammie coughs slightly before saying anything. "So, do you guys..._have a_ _history_?" she questions, putting the statement as politely and lightly as she possibly could phrase it, hoping that it doesn't sound too offensive. She doesn't even know why she's thinking this, but Cammie's hoping that they didn't, because she genuinely likes Zach without even talking to him for too long; it's almost as if he gets her.

"You could say that," Macey replies, immediately putting up a cold exterior as they walk back into the dormitory room; both girls pinch the tip of their noses slightly at the stench that's coming from the back of the room. "What the _hell's _that?" Macey remarks, in a nasal tone.

A loud explosion sounds, and all of the members of the room immediately duck. "Homework," a smaller sized blond girl, with a heavy tan, remarks from the back of the room as though it's the most logical thing in the world. Then, Cammie remembers that she had skipped the afternoon classes, or at least one of them, and had missed out on the morning class (the etiquette one didn't seem too important, however), and that if she wanted to stay here, she would have to actually catch up on her homework, something that she wasn't looking too forward too.

She walks toward the back of the room, and tapped the blond girl on her bony shoulder. Immediately, some chemicals are flung into her bare eyes, and it feels as though they were melting off; the little girl starts screaming, loudly, and motioning for the rest of the roommates to hand her equipment. "Just send her to the nurse or doctor or whatever they have around here!" a louder voice echoes from the front of the dorm.

Cammie slowly nods to that remark; it made the most sense. By the time that she reached the nurse's office, Cammie isn't quite aware of where she was, but notices that she was placed on a bed that didn't cause back aches — maybe she would hang out here _a lot more often_; when she woke up, all that she was able to see was a bright white light blinding her eyes, and seven pairs of concerned eyes — her roommates.

Maybe it wouldn't be _so_ bad here.

.

**tbc.**

**.**

**a/n: First of all, for everybody in the Clique (or whichever) fandom who's dealing with the hacker Ashlee, don't listen to her; You guys are all fabulous (: I just came back from France, and my two to three week vacation, so I realized that I should probably update this story. This is pretty much rushed and horrible, but I hope that everybody likes it, :) Please leave a review and everyone have a good weekend! Okay, Zach seems really OoC to me, and I'm sorry if this is burning your eyes. Also, there was a lot more dialogue in this chapter, so which style do you guys like better: more dialogue, or more descriptions? Thanks to Rachel (sparkle filled hearts) for beta-reading this.**

Thanks to **TerryCherry, krikanalo, ForeverAGallagherGirl135, AutumnHerondale, zammiefax4ever, and if you find me, my-nose-is-in-a-book, XxCandyyGirlxX, wittykittylizzie, andinify, mnash123, Gallaghergirl1897, sparkle filled hearts, RheaShetty, miyame-chan, websterwolvesrock, rabbitlavell, & bubblegum04 **for reviewing — hope you guys enjoyed the previews, :)

With the help of **eighteen reviews (the average of the story's reviews) **I promise to update by or before August 6th, 2013.

Review for another preview?

**x clara**


	12. eleven

**/TALLY: 4,061 words.**

**Sorry about the late update; I'm just kind of frustrated since iamadalekdalek just copied my story. Sorry 'bout the rant!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing — anything that you recognize, it's probably not mine, m'kay? Thanks for all of the reviews, guys, :)**

**the defiant ones  
**chapter three

The next time that Cammie opened her eyes, the seven pair of concerned eyes were still there — they alternated between an emerald green, dark brown, light blues, and forest greens; nevertheless, they all carried the same brooding look that was typically reserved for events such as funerals and Cammie felt very much alive, thank you very much. She sits up in bed, and then immediately regrets the action before sitting back down because there's this throbbing pain in her lower leg muscles, and it feels as though Cammie had dislocated her shoulder, bruised a few ribs, and broken both of her feet.

Just to confirm it all, she looked down and examined her body which seemed to be in perfect shape besides the fact that her vision was still foggy. "What's going on?" She muttered in a low voice; now, looking around, Cammie wondered if this had all been just a dream since only the blonde clumsy one was here; there was another figure there too, but she couldn't quite make it out with the horrible vision that Cammie hoped wouldn't be lasting for too long.

She jumped up, immediately, "Oh, gosh, thank god you're okay. You know since, I looked at OSHA; the school's library is practically useless, and it said that Ammonium Perfluorooctanoate and Aramaite weren't exactly hazardous chemicals so I decided to use them," the girl looks around, nervously. "Then, after this little incident, I looked them up again and it seemed as though they were just recently added to the list—"

"English, _please_?" Cammie emphasized, smiling a little at the flustered and slightly disappointed expression that crossed the girl's face. She looked around, just then noticing that none of the nurses were there and a notice was recently plastered to her hand, on top of the IV tube, noting that she would be let out of the Academy's Hospital in what seemed to be a few hours, and she felt reluctant to move. Cammie could get used to a comfortable mattress and actually being able to sleep without noisy roommates.

The other figure stood up, and upon coming closer, Cammie recognized the girl with the British accent from earlier. "She means that she mixed some hazardous chemicals for some chemistry extra credit, but you wouldn't know that since you're one of those kids who's been skipping class, haven't you?"

"Rebecca," Cammie sneered, recognizing the name from the roommate list that had been given along with the orientation packet; it seemed like so long ago, even though this was technically still her first school day, which wasn't ending too well, here if she was looking at the cuckoo clock correctly. "I didn't expect to see _you _here." She should have expected one of her former acquaintances to come here, again; that was just her greatest luck.

Bex chuckled in a demeaning manner. "Cameron, I thought that mommy and daddy were still paying for your book supplies and that you had promised to keep things on a low profile after that wild party a few years back; and I, of course, got away scot-free. If I knew that you were coming here," Bex took a deep breath before continuing, "—I'd have thrown you a parade!"

The two immediately envelop each other in a hug — or as good as a best friend forever hug can get when one of the members is lying in a hospital bed, attached to various tubes. "What the BLOODY HELL are you doing here?" Bex exclaimed, loudly, earning several shushes from the other nurses who had randomly appeared through the doors, carrying antioxidant supplies to bullet wounds in one hand and a bowl of delectable appearing mush in the other. Something wasn't right here, Cammie thought to herself, but ignored her hunches; after all, they usually ended her up nowhere.

"You know how mom's always ending up in a deserted alleyway, and she's just pretty messed up and everything. Guess what she did with the money that I had saved up for college?"

Bex gasped, "No way in hell did she spend it all on some gambling venture, and then let me guess, she lost it all?" Cammie smiled back; there was a reason the two of them had been best friends ever since their schools had done an exchange trip back in the early years of junior high. Bex was the best person to tell something important to; she gasped at all of the right times, and didn't make snarky comments when they weren't really appreciated.

"She _did. Every single penny. _So, I had to something to get back into Harvard—" Memories all come rushing back. "And, I listened to what you had told me a few years back, if I was ever in trouble; so, I stole enough money from the local bank to pay for at least the first two years of college, and then I would make my way honestly throughout the world but the police caught me at the house, so I was sent here. What about you?" Cammie asks, curiously. Bex had always been the troublemaker, the instigator of problems and Cammie couldn't wait to here what trouble she had gotten herself into, this time.

"It's nothing too exciting," Bex says; Cammie pouts. "But, it's a lot more exciting than something that you did, just for education; I got into Dorothea Dix."

It takes everything Cammie has not to splutter loudly, and scream her lungs out; Dorothea Dix was this sort of place for the insane people, all the children with rich daddies who didn't want their troublemaking children to interfere in political careers though there had never been a straight answer for the occupations of Bex's parents. "Dorothea Dix?" She asked, just to make sure that Bex was telling the truth; she had a bad habit of exaggerating details.

"I'm not joking. I went to Dorothea Dix, and I sneaked out several times but then one time, when I was looking for more about my biological parents; I had a lead there, just for a second, they caught me, and I was sent here. Do you know when you're going to be let out of here?" Bex questions.

Cammie sighs, looking back at the notice before a devious smile crosses her face. "Wanna sneak out?" She glances at the other hospital patients, who are lying on their backs and looking as though they would rather be doing anything then spinning the day away, staring at the clock in the distance; there's a small watch plastered to her pointed wrist, and Cammie checks it once more with the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, and carelessly yanks off all of the wires that have been plastered to her body for at least the past few hours, ignoring the sharp jolts of pain.

Bex smiles back. "I thought you'd never ask."

Upon second thoughts, they still manage to convince Liz, the blonde girl's name, to tell the nurses that the two girls had gone on a small trip to the bathroom, but they would be back soon; like, never; but that didn't really seem to matter. Looking across the empty expanses of hallways, they eventually lost themselves in the maze like areas and eventually ended up on what seemed to be called Sublevel Two, based on the signs that were blaring loudly upon their entrance though the door was soon closed and there was nowhere to go. "What the hell is that annoying sound?" Cammie asked, lazily.

"A code black protects Gallagher Academy from enemies. A code black is the scariest thing that can happen to Gallagher Academy. The family tapestry disappears into the wall, all the lights go out and lanterns turn on. Steel covers descend over the windows and vending machines that lead to deeper, more secret parts of the school slide into the ground and are covered with stone so it looks like they were never there. The bookcases slide into the walls—"

Cammie sighs, turning around. "What are you doing here? I thought that you were supposed to be making it look like the two of us were in the bathroom, when we were _trying to have some fun. _God," she muttered to herself. "What does a girl have to do to have some fun around here?"

"—and doors are closed and locked by high tech locks. The library spins and sinks into the floor and the burn boxes burst into flames. And Gilly's sword, one of the most important Gallagher treasures slides into its vault that then sinks into the floor. The students all report to their common rooms, and the teachers are there with them. The entire school system goes on lock down and nothing comes in or out," Liz finally finishes reciting, and then Cammie turns her head sharply.

"Wait, what did you say? This isn't some sort of spooky spy Academy, Liz. It's a place where troublemakers and juvenile delinquents go, because there's no other way that they'd be able to survive in juvenile especially since their parents are paying for this place, right?" Bex sounds as though she's trying to reassure herself, and the statement comes out as a question.

"You're just going to have to wait and see," Liz says mysteriously, then vanishes throughout the doors which close behind her, as her fingerprint is taken; both Cammie and Bex run after her and gulp as the door opens once more. _Oh, shit._

_._

It's only the first day of school, and Cammie's already tired enough of seeing her gambling addict mother who's also some sort of kooky headmistress who ships children and juvenile delinquents to their doom — she's definitely not going to get used to the so called Academy, with its winding staircases, secret passageways, and mysterious swords that electrocute students upon touch. And, by the way that Headmistress Morgan; Cammie can't bring herself to call her mother; is impatiently tapping her right foot upon the floor, and crossing her arms in an impatient manner, doesn't seem too joyous about the meetings, either.

"I can't believe that the two of you — especially you, _Cammie_; you've already been in here once today, so I thought that you might have learned your lesson about not doing anything to disrupt the ambience of the Academy," Headmistress Morgan announces, loudly, sitting down on the black piano bench, drumming her fingers in a repeated manner and looking quite perturbed at the fact that neither of the three girls are looking quite disappointed in themselves.

Just then, the door opens and Headmistress Morgan walks out, saying that she won't be gone for a minute so there's no use in even trying to escape because of the security cameras lining the walls. Bex and Cammie do not speak to each other for that minute, and Cammie ends up just looking over the simple trinkets that have filled the room, making them looking just a little bit more lived in.

There, of course, is the piano from their house; the one that Cammie had tried for years to master but could not reach her smaller hands past an octave, something that would not be accepted. Its surface is beaten, scars forming all over and looks fragile, almost as breakable as the china vases that rest upon it, dragons breathing balls of fire on one, and others, a simple pattern of repeated flowers and clovers, lined up evenly. There's also other trinkets in the room, and Cammie is reminded of certain days forced to play the violin, a particular instrument that she detested; the squeaks of the E string and the problems with too much or too little rosin became a hassle, more of a chore, when private lessons and competitions became involved.

She glances away as the door opens once more, and another person comes into the room. "This is Mr. Smith, who will be your new surveillance teacher for the freshmen year."

Her eyes flash towards the person mentioned, who doesn't look past the age of thirty five with gorgeous green eyes and short dark hair — if you were into that sort of thing, but all Cammie can think about is how she's seen him in family photographs, several times before. He's been cut out of the pictures of family albums for years, and her mother had always told her that this man's name was Mr. Solomon, and if anything happened to her, Cammie should trust him.

"Gillian Gallagher founded Gallagher Academy in 1865. Gillian had renovated her family home into a school after the government denied her entry to the United States Secret Agency because of her gender; Did you know that, girls?" Mr. Solomon questions, sounding like Liz does whenever she recites, something, though the name Gillian rings a bell in Cammie's mind.

"He had _gorgeous _green hair and _heavenly _choppy eyes," Bex whispers, as soon as they've been dismissed, around five minutes later after some sort of parental guidance talk about how troublemaking behavior will not be tolerated, and the next time they will be expelled and Liz wasn't the only one to start quivering in fear after the lecture had finished, though she was the only one who still had tears running down her cheeks.

That's all it takes for two of them to burst into laughter, nearly falling onto the floor, and even Bex cracks a small smile. "I wasn't trying to make a joke," she awkwardly remarks, but then she even joins the two of them. They walk down the hallways, and suddenly they're lost all over again.

It's a completely different room, full of lights and trinkets in the corners, fake gold jewelry piling up on top of each other; "It's your choice," mutters the television, and an image of an empty field, full of nothing but little sand and then water droplets falling down onto the pond, creating ripples from the stones set in motion, skipping and skipping until they plummet into darkness. The scene switches onto an older looking woman, who's packing her bags, before a sound is heard in the distance and the woman walks out of the smaller room and downstairs, muttering soft hellos each second and Cammie can't help but say the words in her mind, slightly whispering them — _DON'T GO IN THE BASEMENT, DON'T GO INTO THE BASEMENT_; but the voices aren't heard, and the world comes crashing down. A single drop of blood is spilled onto the sand minutes later, and flashes of memories strike Cammie's mind, reminding her of a past that couldn't be changed; everything that she had kept buried, came rushing to the surface.

She ignores the flashes, and instead focuses on the room around her; it seems as though two shadows are on opposite ends of the room, and Cammie presumes that both Bex and Liz have wondered off, leaving her here all alone. Then again, it wasn't like her to become scared, at least not that easily, so she walked towards the door, opening the lock gently. "Hello?" She peered into the darkness, "Is anybody here?"

The door suddenly slams behind her, and whispers are heard softly, but growing louder as if somebody is approaching. "HELP! HELP!" She screams as loud as her lungs will allow her, but suddenly, it's as though something is draining her throat and she can't even be able to speak another word and the footsteps are getting louder every second. Cammie tries to feel her way through the darkness, but all she can make it out is another door at the opposite end, and then another door, and another door, and suddenly light rays fill the room, red and thick in color, like the color of blood and she starts to perspire, looking up at the ceiling to see the poisonous looking creatures, misshapen colors.

There are handholds, and Cammie assumes that she is meant to cross the room with those very handholds, meanwhile trying not to be eaten alive by the creatures. If it's any incentive, there's a small light behind Cammie's feet, and it's adamantly growing larger and larger and as she bends to reach the light, the miraculous savior, she realizes that it's a flame and immediately leaps into the air, not making it past the third handhold without falling onto the floor, perhaps fracturing a rib or two in the process and can feel the blood on her head, thankful for the thick bandage that was plastered earlier.

She runs back to the starting line, or wherever she assumes the first handhold to be, because it's getting darker and darker — and where else is there to go?

The lights have flickered on and off, sending an eerie glow throughout the room, and the fire is growing larger; Cammie leaps from one handhold to the next, flicking off the creatures, which feel like slimy spiders in a sense though she's never touched one, trying to avoid falling but she keeps on falling, everytime that she makes it over. By the time Cammie has made it what seems like the door, it opens slowly but then closes immediately on her face; she tries once more, but the doorknob won't move, stuck permanently in place and she starts crying, yelling for more help, but there never has been anyone to listen, so why should they be coming, out of all times, when she actually needs the help, now?

Suddenly, the door opens, just before the fire starts burning some of her fingers, and part of her shoes off with Cammie hastily discards after reaching the next room, in which the door doesn't seem to close, just when she wants them to close. The light flickers on, and for once it actually stays long enough for her to identify the room; it's a hallway. There are doors, people going in and out, and suddenly right before she's attacked, the room goes dark again, and all of the knives, the crimson smudged blood stains disappear, as though it was just a dream.

People are going through the doorways once more, and it's all a blur suddenly and she can't tell who's who; Cammie squeezes behind the bars of a jail cell, before ending up in a deserted room and her throat suddenly becomes parched, and feels as though her breath has been taken away, quite literally in this case. Cammie's beginning to think that the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy is a lot more complicated that it sounds.

Of course, she's read through the orientation packet a couple times, and some of the facts just don't add up;

Like, how some of the courses that the older children would take were advanced encryption, covert operations, culture and assimilation, countries of the world, and protection and enforcement while the freshmen class took calculus, advanced english classes, and geography. It was said that Gilian Gallagher founded the school, according to Mr. Solomon (why would he lie about his name?), though she had been told that some man had left donations in the late 1990's for creating this Academy for troubled children, and it had only recently been finished being built.

And nothing comes even close to explaining why on earth her mother — the one with the gambling addiction — was headmistress of this elusive place.

Moments later, she bumps into a familiar figure that's much smaller than her own, identifying it to be Liz, who's squeaking on and off about some trap, or some sort of classroom assignment but all Cammie can think about is how she's going to make it out of this alive and slowly whispers, with her voice cracking on every other word, "Do you know any way out of here, Liz?"

The lights switch on, suddenly, and the familiar figure of Mr. Smith — but Cammie knows that it's Mr. Solomon — appears out of the darkness, and all of the traps, fighting ninja things, and poisonous creatures disappear, vanishing into thin air. "Sorry about this," he says, almost sheepishly. "It's a classroom...a test, for some of the older students. It wasn't meant to be discovered by the younger students."

Bex is the first to speak up, placing her hands on her hips. "We want to know the real story." Cammie is almost so relieved to say that all of them are alive, that she doesn't focus on the obvious signs of a lie that Mr. Solomon displaying, but everybody knows that he's a master at that craft. Liz and Cammie both nod fervently, joining in behind her, as if they are a small militia, flanked by order of confidence in themselves.

"That is the real story," Mr. Solomon laughs. "There's nothing more to it." He repeats the phrase over and over again, almost as if he's trying to replace all of their memories with what he's assuming to be the truth, and Cammie plays along; Bex and Liz follow in suit, smiling after a while and leaving the room.

As soon as they drop their act of a dazed state, the three of them gather closely together, in a small huddle as if they're trying to discuss something secretly from another person's point of view, they look sort of awkward, walking down the hall in a huddle. There's a lot of crashing into walls, too. By the time that they make it to the dorm room, Cammie calls out, "Macey, I've," she correct herself, "—we've got loads to tell you. There's this gorgeous teacher with heavenly green hair and gorgeous choppy eyes," she jokes, and the three of them can't help but giggle; there's no response, however. "Macey?"

She glances sideways at Bex and Liz who are muttering and whispering her to open the door; Liz is still going on and off about something being wrong with that kooky teacher and those code reds and blacks, something that she had read in a history textbook for this school, and Cammie just sighs, ignoring her.

Cammie knocks on the door one more time, before pulling a pin out of her hair and breaking the lock, pursing her lips as she opens the door into darkness, and there's a collective gasp heard — Macey and Zach, making out on Cammie's bed. They immediately break apart, and run to opposite ends of the room as though nothing had happened, but something definitely did happen, something that the three of them missed. "Well, then," Cammie murmured, before running out of the room, feeling as though her heart was broken, for no reason at all.

**a/n: playlist: **shake it out [florence & the machine]; pearl [katy perry]; always be together [little mix/dna]; primadonna girl [marina & the diamonds]; long live [taylor swift], and repeat. **Please leave a review and everyone have a good weekend! ****Thanks to Rachel (sparkle filled hearts) for beta-reading this, and thanks to everybody who's been reviewing, following, favorite-ing, and even just viewing, :) So, here's the introduction of Bex and Liz's personalities, and the MaceyZach won't be for too long [lasting until around the eighteenth chapter, maybe], okay?**

With the help of **nineteen reviews (the average of the story's reviews) **I promise to update by or before August 10th, 2013. Thanks to **sparkle filled hearts, bubblegum04, RheaShetty, ViolinistOfTheNight, mnash123, ForeverAGallagherGirl135, my-nose-is-in-a-book, miyame-chan, wittykittylizzie, **_rachel, peacock 1, _**XxCandyyGirlxX, Autumn Herondale, & and if you find me. **

Review for another preview?

**x clara**


	13. twelve

**\TALLY: 4,049 words**

**Thank you so much for all of the reviews and the support; it really means a lot, :) I'm sorry if this chapter is rushed, but I just wanted to get it out there and update quickly! Hope you like it, :) ****Disclaimer: I don't own anything; any resemblances — probably not mine, m'kay?**

**the defiant ones  
**chapter four

By the time that Cammie reaches the passageway behind the quilted tapestry, her dishwater blue eyes are already glazed over with heavy tears, falling on top of each other and spilling quickly — _she's not even sure why_; and before she starts to calm herself down, the tapestry opens once more and something flashes, a figure perhaps, maybe a person, but they move too quickly for her to comprehend the movement in a logical manner, or at least identify the person. It was easier than the previous time to find the passageway, and she feels almost numb as Cammie curls up into a small ball, her heart shattering.

In a way, she wishes as though she had never been the one to steal the money from the bank — it wasn't worth it to go through all of this pain, to come up with a life that wouldn't even have a happy ending. No matter how successful one was at this school, Harvard wasn't exactly going to accept them, no matter what they had done to change themselves over the next four years; if only there was a way to be let out, early, but Cammie had already tried that. A shadow moves again, and this Cammie stops her weeping for a moment, looking out of her knees to see an unfamiliar figure disappear into thin air.

Cammie rules it almost ridiculous and naive to calll out a hello, so instead she decides to wallow in self pity and misery that's not even understandable until she hears the voices. They're a little distant, but she can make out the tones of Headmistress Morgan and Mr. Solomon, conversing together — perhaps in the teacher's lounge, maybe in the head office; she crawls through what seems to be a vent, hoping that her body will not make a sound.

She gets closer to the noises, and then weighs her options. It wouldn't be right to spy on her mother and Mr. Solomon, especially after she had just been in trouble twice that day, and twice was more than enough. Cammie wasn't looking forward to a third trip to the Head Office that day, and decided to turn around before she heard something referring to her father, and immediately spun around, inching forward quickly, not even caring if she made noises.

Eventually, the noises diminished; perhaps they knew that somebody was listening in on their conversation, but the words were still there. She pressed her ear to one of the small holes in the vent, an entrance to another, and listened.

"I know that Matthew was a loyal friend, to all of us, but we can't possibly tell her, at least not yet, what happened to him. What was the story that you told her? We need to keep some things in secret," Mr. Solomon noted, drumming his fingers quickly, in an agitated manner.

On the other hand, her mother was pacing back and forth, obviously more nervous about how the situation would impact her. "There was a call — when she was in sixth grade; I told her that her father was in the army, and that he had been killed in a battle, fighting on the front line, bravely. You don't think that I could tell her about everything? She _deserves _to know the truth."

_Yes, _Cammie thought to herself — _I deserve to know the truth. _"About the Circle of Cavan? You can't possibly make her understand about how her father really died at least until the end of the year. All of the freshmen year of students deserve to be told the truth, about why they've been selected to come here, at the same time. That's what we promised ourselves when this Academy was founded, remember?"

"Can't I at least tell her about the truth of her roommate? I don't even understand why we assigned the two of them to live together," Mrs. Morgan sighs, pressing her hands to her temples, and searching through a few bins near the front of the room, pulling out some loose sheets of paper.

Mr. Solomon sighed. "They're going to be working great together, I know it. If you tell her about this now, then there won't be time for them to make a real connection, and to start working together well; she'll just start judging him, and that will be the end of it. You have to trust me on this, Rachel. She can't know about the truth behind Zachary Goode; nobody ever can."

"But his mother killed her father! Even Zach, took a part in the mission!" Mrs. Morgan exclaims; Cammie catches her breath and leans against the vent in shock, more tears rolling down her cheeks and soon enough, she can't find a way to stop. "Do you hear that noise?" Cammie takes the opportunity to crawl slowly out of the passageway until it's far enough that nobody will reach her; even she isn't too sure of the exact location where she is now, and she saves the moment to weep.

She cries for her father, and how he'll never come back to his family again; she cries for her mother, who will always have to keep the truth from a daughter and the world, hiding all of the pain behind empty smiles; she cries for herself because she's lost her father; and she cries for Macey, because she'll never really know the truth about Zach — only Cammie will ever know the truth, and she decides to keep it a secret, for as long as possible.

Cammie deems herself stupid and ignorant, a young child with a schoolgirl crush, for ever thinking that Zach and her had a real connection; everything between them had ended, and there was no going back now that she was aware of the truth. Cammie walked back to the dormitory room with its shut lights, and resisted the urge to decapitate him, instead falling into the lumpy mattress, tears still rolling down her cheeks reduced to muffled sobs.

.

The next time that she wakes up, water is dripping down her face — the cold kind; and she's spluttering while loud alarms are going off in the distance, reminding her off an alarm clock. Cammie decides that she really needs to find a way out of this Academy, and immediately grabs one of the towels out of her bag before realizing that it's already been used, and instead wipes her soaking face with the long sleeve of her shirt, and walks over to the bathroom, knocking on the door before realizing that somebody's in there and immediately walking away towards Macey, who's not even awake yet.

Cammie sighs, throwing another one of those buckets of ice cold water, that are conveniently placed outside of the door which she has slammed loudly, onto Macey's face which immediately wakes her up and she coughs before glaring at Cammie. "What the hell was that?" She spluttered, coughing some more.

"It's time to wake up, apparently," Cammie replies, throwing one of the Academy's uniform's light cream skirt which reaches the middle of her thigh and one of the tan colored polos with several broken buttons; you'd think that they could afford better. "There was this bell—"

And, as if right on cue, a woman comes running through the door, ignoring the sight of half-naked teenager boys and soaking wet girls, screaming at the top of her lungs, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" All of them refuse the urge to tell the woman that they're already up; that they've been up for the last few minutes before realizing that breakfast is almost over. In a quick rush, they run down to the bottom of the staircase, collapsing at the only available table near the front of the Grand Hall, which is already emptied of most of the food; the eight of them push, throwing cold milk at each other in vain efforts to steal each other's food.

One of them — a blue eyed Greek God by the name of Grant Newman is surprisingly good at the art of pushing and shoving, stuffing the cold oatmeal down his throat; Cammie tries to avoid the hideous stench and swallows the cold food, reminding herself to wake up earlier for every other day so that situations like _this _could be avoided. It was bad enough that they were late to the dining hall, but then she recollected yesterday's events and looked up at the podium.

Her mother is standing there, glancing at the row of teachers who are all eating food which looks much more delectable than the oatmeal in Cammie's plate and clears her mouth, speaking loudly into the microphone which squeaks in response, "Good morning, students of the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy." Some of the older students reply a _Good Morning, Headmistress Morgan _loudly, while the majority of the freshmen look lost, long past the needs of shoveling mush down their throats when they would throw up minutes later in some of the conveniently placed garbage cans.

"This morning," Headmistress Morgan points to a board on the entrance of the room, something that Cammie hadn't noticed when running in, "—we will be working in English; British Accents for our language. If you do not wish to speak in that way, you do not have to speak at all," she says with a wide smile. "And, that will be all for today."

Cammie glares at her mother who doesn't seem to respond with anything but a tight smile — she turns her head towards Bex who's grinning as though the world depends on it. "Did she just say, what I thought she just said?" Bex murmurs, with a delighted grin; after all, she was the only one in their dorm who would be speaking for the rest of the day and seemed just a little too excited about the notion.

"I've got to get to class," Cammie mutters in the worst British accent that she can mutters; Liz almost spits her food out, laughing. "Anyone care to join me?" Nobody leaves their food — it must be _ever so delicious_; she walks slowly out of the doors, pulling something out of the backpack she had hastily placed on, pulling out her cell phone and hoping to get some sort of cell tower connection, any wifi possible, but nothing comes and she groans, putting it back._  
_

She walks through the hallways and then stops at one of the doors which seems to be near the front of the building, or at least one of the exits, and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper from the bottom of her Jansport backpack, reading her schedule out loud; it seems as though for this day, P&E with Professor Nelson is first, and Cammie groans at the prospect of being forced to do more exercise than surviving, but makes her way to the gym only to see that the rest of the students assembled there, are dressed in sport shorts and a baggy team badminton tee which comes in, she notes, various blinding neon shades.

Cammie walks down the steps to the court, observing the focus and concentration that each of these teenagers are placing on the bird; isn't that what it's called? She spends the next three or so hours losing herself in the game — badminton serves as a convenient distraction; it appears to be one of those common, blow-off sports that most normal people would take instead of a rigorous sports class but after one hour, she feels faint and dizzy, and the rest of the students have brilliant smiles on their faces as though this is just the beginning.

Class starts with a four lap run outside the perimeter of the Academy, and though inhaling the fresh air is refreshing, something that she hadn't expected to happen for a very long time, after stumbling and tripping on several of the rocks, darting out of the way of frogs and snakes, squealing all the time, Cammie realizes that maybe she should talk to her mother about dropping this class; after all, the headmistress is the one who plans all of the student's schedules. Nevertheless, Cammie decides to refrain from something such as that; run ins with her mother, after learning so much about the secrets that were being kept from her, would only make the situation slightly more awkward than it already was between the two of them.

Her mind's distracted soon enough with the warmup exercises — something by the lines of suicide runs; all of the other girls let out a small groan, and then Cammie realizes that if all of these other girls, who seem so physically fit that they could be training for the Olympics or some international event like that, are groaning about suicide runs, she should be tearing her eyes out in worry.

It turns out that suicide runs are simple; you start from the front line, run a few feet, touch the floor, run back to the first line, run a few more feet than the first time, and it just goes on and on until Professor Nelson becomes bored enough to stop [his boredom lasts for thirteen minutes and forty two seconds]. Then, footwork begins and it's an even bigger nightmare than suicide runs, with the constant worry of not being able to move your feet fast enough and being whipped near the ankles in a repeated manner — it's definitely child abuse, Cammie thinks to herself; and then you have to switch your feet, but make sure than your racket comes forward before the left foot finishes.

Her feet are moving quicker than they've ever moved before, and all of the blood is rushing towards her pounding head and all she can feel is the sound of the whip on her weak ankles — if she falls, she gets up; Cammie wonders just what's wrong with this world, and why on earth her mother is putting her through this much torture. Her toes are already bleeding far enough, and though she reaches for a bandaid, halfway through the session based off the clock which could have been hours off, Professor Nelson said that a lot of pain never hurt anyone.

Oh, that's right, Cammie reminds herself. Pain will somehow help you become a better person. Teachers switch around that time, perhaps a few minutes later, and all of the girls stand in a line, sending their birdies through the air as they interconnect throughout the midst of sweaty faces and sprained ankles, broken bones set aside for another day — Cammie, instead, practices the simple motion of moving her feet quicker on the sidelines, back and forth, back and forth, with a bored looking ten year old who keeps on counting randdom numbers in Chinese, repeating them over and over again until he gets bored, and randomly walks away. She wants to call after the little boy to keep on counting, because Cammie's finally got the hang of this but that's when the teacher comes over, and tells her that she's been doing everything wrong; both hands need to come up, and Cammie needs to be quicker. Something is always wrong.

"_Faster, faster, faster," _are the only words that Cammie hears for the next thirty minutes; when Professor Nelson ends the lesson, some of the girls complain.

Seriously, Cammie would do anything right now to rip off their heads and take out their hearts but she has to remember that she's not a vampire, and this is the real world where everything, her whole future — or at least what's left of it; depends on graduating successfully from this godforsaken Academy, so she just plays along and begs with the other Chinese girls [seriously, they're all Chinese; there's two Indian girls, and a redhead, but still] to practice more.

So, it's declared that they'll be playing a game, a doubles game.

To play a game, it's been declared that you need partners; though she's new at everything here, Cammie smiles at a few of the other girls who only turn away their heads in disgust at the troublemaking wild child, she's heard that phrase before, instead finding their own teammates. Within two minutes, she's forced to go to Professor Nelson for help with finding a partner, and she's assigned to play a game on the back court, five against one, five against her. Cammie smiles — she must have done something right to get this; but by the time that she reaches the back court, she's already frowning and there had to have been a mistake, but Professor Nelson assures her that this is what they stick "beginners that are horrible" with.

It's a group of Chinese five year olds who are bouncing impatiently, most of their weight on their back leg, as they hold their rackets in a threatening yet skilled manner. Cammie smiles, slowly; she was definitely going to win this.

.

"You need to stop coming to the hospital, dearie," the kooky nurse announces loudly, "It's not that I don't like you, but you're supposed to be spending the majority of your time in classes, not at the hospital where you can't learn anything."

Cammie sighs, "It's not my fault that a group of angry five year olds who are surprisingly skilled at badminton, decided to whack and pellet me to death with their rackets, and the teacher didn't even _say anything. _I'd rather do boxing than that sport; I'm not even joking," she says with a straight face. "I just want to lay down here," she smiles, lying down on the soft mattress, the one without any lumps, "—and relax for a few hours."

The nurse frowns suddenly. "You think that you just came to the hospital to heal and relax?"

For a moment, Cammie hopes that the nurse is joking, but by the irate expression that the woman has plastered onto her indignant looking face, in which many veins are bulging in a way that can't possibly be healthy, there is no joking matter about this. "What do you mean? That's what hospitals are for — to heal the sick, and to let them rest, right?"

"I'll get someone to send down your homework," the nurse rolls her eyes, muttering under her breath, _she thinks that hospitals are for resting, _letting out a deep laugh; Cammie suddenly wishes that she had fainted in that badminton court when someone comes through the doors, carrying several books piled up on top of each other, but they look as though they're going to all fall down on top of her hospital bed.

Liz leaves as quickly as she had come, and Cammie groans, looking at the endless pile of homework — she was quite sure that she hadn't been taken French long enough to translate Arcadia into the complete language, and instead studied the nearly empty room in front of her; there were a few other students, who were wearing professional looking blazers and had small white dots breaking out on their feet which were exposed — perhaps, this school was funded quite well, but couldn't the students afford to wash their feet with fresh soap, or was that too much to ask for; Cammie looked around the room, and noticed that ragged breathing was the only sound.

The taste of sweet white chocolate fills her mouth, and Cammie sits up in the hospital bed, pulling out the school mandated laptop which was barely ten inches of a screen yet it had no brightness, but instead worked with a twenty four hour battery — a double set, yes; but, still, the time alone was impressive. After typing up all the assignments that she would be forced to complete before leaving the hospital in a couple of hours, Cammie groaned once more; she was making a bad habit of that; scrolling down the ten pages of assignments, and opting to start with whatever seemed the easiest. She'd rather lounge around all day, eating white chocolate and resting her legs on the recliner, but that didn't seem to be okay if she wished to graduate at the top of her class.

Nevertheless, the book at the top of the homework caught her eye; it looked interesting enough.

She slowly opened it, ignoring the creak of the spine as the book was a door that needed some serious oiling and started reading about what seemed to be the History of the Gallagher Academy — according to this book, it was founded by a woman; the one that Mr. Solomon had mentioned, _Gillian Gallagher, _which didn't make sense considering what Cammie had been told in the orientation packet. There were just lies and secrets, piled up on top on each other and Cammie was determined to find out the truth about this place, no matter how many hours of research it took.

"Gillian Gallagher founded Gallagher Academy in 1865. Gillian had renovated her family home into a school after the government denied her entry to the United States Secret Agency because of her gender," Cammie reads quietly to herself, noting that this was what Mr. Solomon had already told her, "The school's motto is 'Learn Her Skills, Honor Her Sword, Keep Her Secrets'."

She takes a deep breath, continuing to read a little more into the book; it seems interesting enough, if not a little fishy. Cammie sips a glass of cold mineral tasting water, which is on the hospital bed, emptied hours prior, next to her, and places it down, wincing at the taste of metal and iron. "The school resides about two miles from the small town of Roseville, Virginia and half a mile away from Highway 10. The adults of the outside world believe Gallagher Academy to be a prestigious, all-girls school, while the local children view it to be a preppy school for privileged snobs. The girls are trained in martial arts, taught real history, learn political secrets, and are given extra credit for cracking CIA codes."

Cammie closes the back, smiling as though everything she needs to succeed is in front of her — and in a way, it is; she just had to keep on working.

So, if working was what she had to do to leave as soon as possible, then Cammie would do it.

**.**

**tbc.**

**.**

a/n: [playlist]; _blue jeans, _**lana del rey; **_miss missing you, _**all time low; **_love like woe, _**the ready set; **_starlight, _**taylor swift** [and repeat]

**Thank you to everybody who's been supporting me through the plagiarizing, reporting, and reviewing this story; it's coming along, quickly, and I think that it'll be around 27 to 29 chapters in total, being finished at the end of October, the beginner of November at the latest, of this year. It'll overall be a Zammie story ['cause they're my OTP] but there might be some other pairings at the beginning, like ZachMacey & JoshCammie [in a few chapters], but it'll all be over for those pairings by the eighteenth chapter, which is only five away, :)**

With the help of **nineteen reviews, **I promise to update by or before August 12th, 2013. Thanks to **ViolinistOfTheNight, XxCandyygirlxX, and if you find me, Autumn Herondale, ClassifiedZammieluvr, djmia, lilyroselilac123, andinify, bubblegum04, mnash123, **_Guest, Guest (2), _**NYCdream, Rhea Shetty, zammie848792, miyame-chan, **_Guest (3), _**sparkle filled hearts, the gossip girls of gallagher, & my-nose-is-in-a-book **for reviewing!

Please review for another preview?

**x clara**


	14. thirteen

This chapter is dedicated to **ClassifiedZammieluvr **for being my three hundreth reviewer, :)

**TALLY / 4,014 ****words**

**the defiant ones  
**chapter fourteen

It's already thirty minutes into the Academy's dinner period when Cammie makes it back to the assigned dormitory room, and she decides to lie and mope in self pity while waiting for the rest of her roommates to show up in the next one hour or so. Several thoughts are running through her head — should she approach Zach about this matter? But, it made perfect sense not to do something as unpredictable as that, but once she would be making the decision to confront him about the matter, there would be no turning back. Nevertheless, what was she supposed to say? What was he supposed to do?

There wasn't exactly any Hallmark card for Sorry My Terrorist Mom and I Killed Your Dad.

_Of course not, _Cammie thought frantically to herself — because Hallmark cards were made for some of the more common issues in life, like somebody dying or a toddler's seventh birthday; things that normal people celebrated, if deaths were even celebrated. There hadn't been a funeral for her dad, because his body hadn't been found, no matter how many bribes her mother had tried paying to the services.

Tears quickly run down her cheeks, and she lets them fall down because nobody's watching her. Cammie spends the next twenty or so minutes sprawled across the thin comforter — distractions only last for so long. She had tried reading a book, _The Communist Manifesto, _but there were only so many pages she could go through without wanting to rip each and every one out and burn them in the nonexistent fireplace. Apparently, if a fireplace was given, then some of the students would try to burn themselves. Cammie wasn't exactly sure why somebody would do something like that, because this Academy seemed quite nice so far.

"That's because you haven't even been going to class, bitch," a snide voice remarked, in a slightly friendly tone from across the room, startling Cammie out of her daydream. It comes from across the room, and the door is half ajar, just slightly open enough for a person to squeeze through without making a sound.

Taking a deep breath, Cammie replies, "It's not my fault that I ended up in the hospital, or that my mother is the headmistress, the _fricking headmistress_ or that I stole in the first place — that was my mom's fault, it's not my problem!" It all comes out in a rush, and it takes everything that she has inside of her to not burst into tears; right now, it wouldn't be the right time, or the right place to confess the entire truth.

"So, what, it's just everybody else's fault? You have to remember that it was your decision, in the end, to steal the money—"

"What do you mean, it was my decision, Macey? I'm not sure if you remember, but not all of us have rich daddies and mommies who are willing to keep everything hush hush with a few bags of money that I haven't had since my mom was actually having a job that paid decently," Cammie mutters softly, and she almost regrets the statement. It was too harsh, she thinks later to herself.

Macey blinks away a few tears, and though right now Cammie should be busy apologizing, she feels almost good about saying those words, and realizes that maybe this was what the Academy was about — being yourself, expressing yourself.

"Keep that to yourself, Cams," Macey perches on the bed opposite of Cammie's, wrinkling her nose at the unpleasant odor of the dorm room, not mentioning where the rest of their roommates were, perhaps munching on a desert that involved eating and smelling carbohydrates. "This isn't Glee Club, we're not going to look back at the Academy, and think about how this was the time of our lives," she replies, sarcastically, brushing away the tears easily.

Cammie can't help but let out a snort. "You, Macey McHenry, the President's daughter, watches Glee? What did you even do to get in here, not properly fold a napkin?" She says, her tone heavy with sarcasm. "Wait, no, let me think about this, you wore an inappropriate height of your heels?"

Macey frowns. "Cammie, dah-ling," she mimics a tone that she's heard her mother use on occasion — mostly when speaking to those individuals who would pay large amounts of money to pay for the next campaign, two years down the road. "Inappropriate height of heels? That's absolutely unheard of!" She switches back to her normal voice, "Then again, being the President's daughter isn't all that simple. I couldn't go down the street without having a bodyguard, or multiple on some of the really bad days, especially near the beginning, without the paparazzi ruining everything."

Footsteps echo from down the hall, and the two girls immediately turn towards the pile accumulating near the back of the room, papers flying from the slight wind coming in from the open vent. "God, what the hell is that!" Macey exclaims, walking over cautiously as though the pile was a bomb, ticking time away.

Cammie sighs, "Sadly, Macey, it's not a bomb that's going to kill us — it's just the homework and classwork and notes that I missed throughout the day." She mutters beneath her breath, "Seriously? It's not like I actually missed that much, and what's this with actual homework? I thought that this place wouldn't actually give _homework_." The word is spoken venomously, as though it is a curse.

Thirty minutes later, they're randomly surfing the web though the blocked and throttles for every forum and website that the two girls usually spend most of their computer time (if allotted) on are blocked, and the cell tower had been knocked down only hours earlier. With a sigh, Macey exits the room, off to find something of real value in the hallways, and Cammie just lies flat on her stomach, sifting through the pages of a Ways of the World textbook.

The words fly out of the pages, wrapping themselves around the world, instead of placing themselves accurately in the back of her eyelids, imprinted there temporarily as some of the images and words that she would rather remember than the ones that are everlasting, sickening to the stomach.

Sometimes, she wonders what would happen if she could just forget — forget all the pain that had ever occurred in her life; but it wouldn't be that easy. The memories, everything that Cammie hated about herself would still always be there, from the fact that she had always be the first to raise her hand and the last to be picked on while on the other hand the fact that she had killed her grandmother;

::

_flashback; september 3rd, age twelve_;

Cammie had only been twelve and a half years old at the time of the incident; to be honest, it wasn't really her fault. Her mother and her, living alone as they had since the fifth grade when her father had apparently run out on them (it was a time full of tears and confusion) moved from house to house, never looking back as they packed up as soon as some sort of simple incident occurred.

Her mother had said that it was the only way of keeping them safe, but she had never really identified what or who they were running from.

And it had to be from somebody that Cammie didn't know about; she wasn't that stupid, even as a twelve year old. Tears were falling down her cheeks as she watched outside of the window, mindlessly lying on the floor and watching a television show; watching the adventures of three girls and their lives as mermaids, battling water tentacles, switching soon enough to a battle to kill a person named Klaus and find the cure for a girl's humanity — and watch the blonde collapse onto a sofa as soon as she had taken everything that she had worked towards. Nothing seems to capture her attention; instead, she manages to find her way to the attic, looking for trinkets in a way to pass the time by.

Soon enough, her mother would be returning from mindless errands — everything was mindless in this world; and force her into an outfit more attractive than oversized sweaters and pastel pink tights, just a little too tight from all of those years of being stretched out in the washing cycles.

Glazed eyes skim over an omniscient carpet, fraying at its indigo edges, majestic blues transcending from the years to an onyx as fingernails trace over the fearful design. Toes tapping, Cammie Morgan perches upon a coffee table, which promptly crashes onto the floor, dust fumes rise, trapped within the tight expanse, reaching past the makeshift luminescent stars she had once treasured as a child and below the handmade sewing projects from a late aunt; fresh shadows loom, flickering lights from a luggage sign in the distance, sending dooming signals through the ancient cobwebs, silk nowhere to be found. Sunglasses found in a cavernous case reach out from the darkness; caught in a midsummer's daze, she reaches for them, a slender leg falling above amber tresses as the ultimate prize is ensnared.

"I got the sunglasses," Cammie announces, performing a victory spin, as though she is still a young child, "—so I get the gold!"

The Gold was an exclusive shopping trip, complete with the new edition of a crimson Mercedes and all the prizes it would, in the close future, snag, and perhaps the best one could ask for in whatever this random town was called. Her mother had packed up their bags the day that she had finished sixth grade; they were always moving, and had called it quaint; quite frankly, Cammie considered it rather debilitating, much like her grandparents.

At least to her knowledge, the only room in this house that didn't contain an object of interest from a previous millennium was outdoors —if that counted. She hops down the stairs, skipping two at a time before reaching the hardwood floors at the bottom, sticky with spills of cranberry juice and apricot jams, similar smells wafting from the family kitchen, doors locked and classical music booming. "I'm going to the gallery, Grandma Morgan," she murmured, sliding on a pair of Louboutin pumps, admiring the newest collection to her countless stashes of shoes, sliding in between sunglasses and frilly skirts.

Cammie walks through the doors, inhaling the fresh scent of pine, wishing that she hadn't slid on a pair of ultra skinny jeans as her legs went numb; nevertheless, she strode through the streets, sunglasses on until she came to a parking garage. The Morgans lived in a location so obscure that she had to park in a parking garage, three miles away from the home, which did make for such a lovely morning walk. Her grandparents were interesting people, but seemed to bother too much in her businesses, being the typical annoying sort of people. She returns home in twenty minutes, the car out of gas, out of breath with a mix of dirt and water splayed over her clothing garments.

"I'll be upstairs," she yells, walking through the mess. They had recently started renovating the house, as if they would be living here for much longer. "So, don't bother to call me for lunch." After all, lunch usually consisted for a spinach smoothie and a glass of water, if even, for Cammie, and her grandparents insisted upon a full take-out, usually consisting of a trip to the local restaurant with countless numbers of calories and low nutrients. To say that she was obsessed would be useless; her mother had tried it enough.

Her life had been bored over the past few years; her mother had tried so hard to make her fit in with the other girls, buying all the proper clothing, sending her to gymnastics and cheerleading camps with the other twelve year old girls but Cammie had no interest about fitting in.

Sometimes, she felt as though it would be nice to have someone, _anyone, _on the outside with her; a friend that understood her, but the thoughts only came every once in a while, not in a consistent manner which would destroy her existence until she managed to change her personality completely for the matters of conformation. It just wasn't her.

Nothing was her anymore; these years were supposed to be some of the best years of her lives, making everlasting friendships and bonds, not running away from the danger and mistakes that always seemed to be following her, never truly gone.

"You should try going to the scavenger hunt, later, dearie," a voice echoed throughout the house, and she stopped mid-step, immediately regretting her decision as she almost toppled backwards. There's suddenly a chilly breeze, and she notices that the door was left half open, as if somebody had come in —Cammie was confident in her thoughts that she had closed the door, after all living in some of the bad parts of town back home, and neither of her grandparents woke up before noon, unless they were to pick her up from the airport, like they had one and a half weeks ago. Walking up to her room, Cammie ignored the signals, knowing that nothing would ever happen.

Nothing ever did happen; back home, if she could call any place home as her mother had insisted on moving around every three months, and still wondered why her daughter couldn't manage to make friends, to live life to the fullest, ever since her father had left them, or so that was what her mother had told her.

Six months after her father left them, the two of them — always alone, always moving; had received a shipment in the mail. It had been a small box, carefully wrapped in green lace with roses on the left side, the package having being addressed to Cammie. She had eagerly opened it, ripping apart the seals and tape, ignoring the bright red stains on the back, drying up as opened with the letters COC looking, instead noticing the small keychain inside of the package.

It was blue and round, with a dolphin leaping out of a water; next to the blue keychain was a light pink bookmark, made out of leather with Cammie's name engraved upon it. Her mother had immediately destroyed the bookmark, but Cammie had taken the keychain before it could be destroyed.

It was her dad's. He never went anywhere without it. It was currently placed inside a small bo on her dresser, kept under lock and key just like it had been since that day, the only valuable possession of her room.

Her room was the only part of the house that she admired; it was previously her mother's bedroom when her mother had still lived with her parents, but Cammie had refurnished and fitted it to her tastes, modernizing everything from the old-fashioned monitor to a sleek Macbook which stood open, an IM message sent through the screen, from the user **soccerboy**. She immediately ignored the message, blocked the user, and sighed, laying down on the duvet, another decision she soon regretted having spent thirty minutes of the early morning cleanly setting it down. It had been one and a half weeks, and there were still two months left of her stay with the grandparents.

She couldn't wait to leave. After all, high school would be starting in the fall, and all the drama and pressure would start anytime soon, along with the results if she had made the school competitive badminton and cheerleading team, along with the transcripts. Before leaving home, Cammie's mother had forced her to send an admission letter to the Musical Youth Association, also known as MYA, as if she would be able to make the exclusive orchestra.

Of course, she had made a few temporary friends over the years but none that truly were going to last. Cammie could even see that the one person that she depended on the most — her mother — was standing on the wake of devastation, breaking apart.

However, checking her summer e-mail's inbox, realizing it to be empty, she moves away from the computer, deciding to take up her grandmother's advice on joining that scavenger hunt. A letter from the town's board, wherever that may be, perhaps in a retirement home thirty miles down the road she had previously seen on her way to this house, could be the location, but perhaps there was life outside of this house, life full of people that were within thirty years of her age. Cammie wasn't being melodramatic; there was nothing to do, unless she planned to spend the rest of her summer skipping stones throughout the waterfalls, jumping without a safety belt.

Which wasn't exactly the plan for the best summer ever, something that her and her best friend Bex had devised a few months before, at least before her mother had sprung up the plans of going to live with the Morgans; sometimes, she couldn't bring herself to call them "Gramps" and "Grandma", because she had barely ever met the people. To Cammie, they were just those random figures in the back of family reunion pictures that she would meet on occasion, swearing never to be seen in sight of back home, around her friends especially.

They wouldn't understand things like this; with brains like theirs, they would barely understand a binomial if it hit them in the face. Then again, Cammie was grateful to have friends like them, suppressing her thoughts of replacing her ever so popular friends with less popular ones who would understand the difference between trig and algebra.

(Not like her so called friends took either class; they opted for statistics.)

The doorbell rings only a second later, a piercing sound, causing Cammie to groan when nobody answers the door five minutes later, very well knowing her responsibility of opening the door (but not to strangers or people she didn't recognize; who was she supposed to recognize here? The mailman?), and got out of bed, brushing the tangles that had already formed in her tresses, in only a few minutes of rest. By the time she had run down the stairs and opened the door, not bothering to look through the peephole, or whatever the hole was named, the person who had rang it was gone.

She looked around for a moment, wondering if this was some sort of elaborate ding dong ditch scam, because if there was any person participating in that kind of activity, she would gladly vacate the house and join them in their somewhat legal activities, instead of calling the police. Out of the corner of her eye, Cammie spotted a box, long and slender, of a somewhat tan color lying in the middle of the welcome carpet that frayed at the edges.

Nobody seemed to be around, enough sign for her to pick up the box, hoping that there wasn't some sort of booby trap and carried it up to her room. Dust formed around the box, clouds of it floating through her nostrils, and she started coughing, regretting not taking her allergy medicine in the morning, ignoring the thoughts of disastrous side effects, potential death and fatigue. With the help of a small pair of scissors, pink and delicate in size, as if they were used for children, to which there seemed to be none around, Cammie opened the box, slicing through the tape evenly.

Sitting down in a chair isn't even relaxing, at least not here; it's faux leather, and black, but swirls well enough without releasing any smoke fumes, but often catches onto any loose objects. The whole room is messed up, and she's barely able to see the ground, but after a while, Cammie hopes that it will feel like a home; but not her real home, just a secondhand version. A bookcase stands on the far side of the room, covered in cobwebs that had formed only yesterday next to a mint plant, which sent delicate scents throughout the room, covering up the smell of dust and other nauseous scents. Nonetheless, Cammie focused her attention to the objects on her lap, lifting a pair of trousers with disgust, throwing them into the recycling bin, then the garbage can, past the Kumon I answers, old comic books, and the old telephone, attached to several white circular cords, to the last object.

She finds a journal — covered in deliberate scraps of everything, nothing to hide the plain brown of the leather exterior. And suddenly, it looked as though the summer break was going to be a lot more interesting. Cammie finds a way to skim through the pages of the book, tears falling down her face and then hears the voices once more. "Get out of my head, get out of my head," she keeps on repeating to herself. All the thoughts get messed up in her head, and she can't think anymore, curling up into a tight fetal position upon the cold carpeting, her hair knotting quickly. It was her father's journal.

Words and pictures clog her brain, and it's almost as though Cammie realizes that she really doesn't know anything about the world, and there's no way to find out.

Everything changes then, because she doesn't have a father anymore. He's not opting for a divorce. He's not getting married to another woman. He's MIA — the spy term for officially dead, especially since the status has been MIA for three years.

Perhaps, if she had been more careful, Cammie would have noticed the match, already lighted, flames igniting.

/

She tries brushing the thoughts out of her head, instead focusing on the fact that the rest of her roommates were probably coming back from dinner around now, judging by the sound of their familiar voices and the footsteps coming closer to the front entrance of the room. Their loud voices clang and Cammie faintly hears the sound of something breaking — perhaps a china vase breaking, and then loud laughs echoing loudly around the area.

Her seven roommates clash into the room with their vibrant outfits; well, they're usually a light white color though spills from foods and various sauces spill across their clothing as though it was meant to be there in the first place. "So," Macey enters first, her long black hair tied up elegantly in a ponytail, not a single mark on her light white dress, several rings surrounding her fingers, "What do you guys say about a little _game _of Truth or Dare?"

.

**a/n:** m'kay, i promise that this is the last filler chapter that i'm going to write! they're going to get in trouble, and be forced to go through an intensive tour in which they bond until something happens which ruins all of their friendship with one another and they're forced to work together at the end, if that makes any sense at all, :) there will definitely be an update before september sixth, that i promise since i have a three day weekend, and i'm reallyreally sorry for not updating quickly enough!

Thanks to **ViolinistOfTheNight, djmia, Autumn Herondale, wittykittylizzie, dreaming of sparkles, XxCandyygirlxX, CammieZachZammie, bubblegum04, Rhea Shetty, miyame-chan, TerryCherry, Alexandra Gallagher, ClassifiedZammieluvr, mnash123, andinify, Ooopsydaisy101, raeganb123, and wishing-in-your-heart **for reviewing the last chapter; thank you so much, guys! It really means a lot, :)

Please review for another preview?

**x clara**


	15. fourteen

**the defiant ones  
**chapter fifteen

By the time the grandfather clock down the hallway has struck twelve times, all eight of them are fast asleep — or all seven of them are steady; Cammie listens to the steady beat of her heart, just wanting to fall asleep, perhaps leave this place. It was just one mistake that had caused her to end up here; maybe there's some way to get out, instead of having to wait the standard three or four years? She just wants to escape everything, because she doesn't belong here. She's never belonged here, and not being accepted with the worst of the rejects; that's the utmost humiliation.

Cammie can't stop feeling everybody's grief, and it's boiling down inside of her, covered up with fake smiles and carefully chosen words, but it's not going to ever be enough — she's always been the first person to raise her hand, and the last one to be picked; even her friends here. Macey seems like a decent sort of person, but not one that she'd like to hang around for a longer period of time. She just wants something _real._

The next time that she opens her eyes, water is imprinting itself onto the back of her eyelids, and she has to catch one of the towels that Liz haphazardly throws at her, without proper aim, to block herself from the buckets.

For some reason, some of the upperclassmen, apparently, think it would have been absolutely hilarious if the freshmen had to go through this sort of hazing ritual, having to go through all the pranks to make sure that they were able to survive — and nobody questions the upperclassmen.

Within fifteen minutes or so, the rest of her roommates and Cammie, along with several other of the first year students that she recognizes from some of her classes and lunch and breakfast periods are brought together in a small room; the walls are not painted, and the room is dark, with a sole light source of moonlight coming in from the side, an alarm clock displaying the current time, which was twelve o'clock, and fifteen minutes past the hour, much past the permitted curfew.

Nevertheless, it seems as though none of the upperclassmen gang, whose numbers were perhaps around fifteen or so members, none of which Cammie officially recognized; none of them seem to have any qualms about being caught, about being taken out of this place.

While it isn't exactly the best of conditions, Cammie has to think about it for a moment and decides that living here for the next three or four years of her life will be much better, and easier to cover up on a college application, if she can even be able to apply to anywhere — after her criminal record is published, not even Clown College will take her in — so, why aren't these people caring about their futures, their lives?

They seem to be living life to the fullest, without a single care in the world, as though these are their last days and they might die at any moment.

On the other hand, judging by their non-stoned, non-drunken state, it doesn't seem as though they have any sort of aneurysm or fatal cancer problems, though she can't judge a book by its cover. "Listen up, freshmen!" A loud voice booms from the corner, and the rest of the assembled first years direct their heads, spinning quickly, towards the sound of a voice.

A burly looking man, who can't be that much older than the teachers; perhaps, he had been kept back a couple of years? Cammie thinks to herself, is speaking through a microphone, as if he doesn't care about being caught, as if this is _typical behavior_. Cammie shudders at the thought; though she had been doing some trouble-making over the past few months, it isn't as though that was her real personality.

What she had done — the stealing; that isn't who she really is. Too bad that the colleges will think otherwise.

She redirects her attention towards the voice, who had identified itself as Tyler Pratt (or was it Brat?) who is planning on dumping buckets of cold water onto the first years until they pledge their everlasting allegiance to the upperclassmen with their blood.

Taking a deep breath, Cammie tries not to panic. Nevertheless, "Ahhh! Save me! Save me!" are the only words that came out of her mouth; then again, most of the other freshmen who aren't planning to publicly humiliate themselves in front of the older kids are doing the same action, pounding on the doors. All of a sudden, Cammie sees Liz, who was crawling on the floor, inconspicuous movements through the frenzy and panic, and due to her petite size is going unnoticed, attempting to escape through perhaps one of the secret passageways, maybe even something as obvious as the door.

So, Cammie crawls as though her life depends on it; then, the two of them are laughing as they make their way out of the vent, dripping wet. They only leave the campus grounds for a few minutes, but then there's this sale — and Cammie keeps on saying _yes__yesYES_ and Liz keeps on saying _let's go, let's go, LET'S GO._ But, the alarm still go off; upon sneaking through, "Girls?" Cammie and Liz look into the face of the headmistress. _Oops._

Ten minutes later, Liz is constantly, obsessively and compulsively, checking her watch, fidgeting with some Rubix Cube that had somehow ended up in her hands, pulling on her hair and crossing her legs, then sitting straight, always moving; then, she stood up, and paced back and forth for some time, thinking hard, and looking as though she was about to pull her hair out which wasn't exactly an improvement from nibbling on her split ends.

"Could you just stop it, Liz? You're making me nervous," Cammie grumbles, starting to fidget as well. It's not her fault that her mother wouldn't believe her about the stunt that the upperclassmen were pulling; apparently, there was some trust pact between them, and that they had promised never to do anything like the hazing ritual from last year, though apparently, they had lied. For some reason, Headmistress Morgan couldn't seem to get her hand around the idea.

Liz rolls her eyes, then bites her lip. "You're asking me to _not be nervous? _Do you know what happens if we don't go here anymore? We're going to be going to juvie, Cammie! Juvie!" She wrings her hands in frustration, and sits down on the sofa, pulling her hair once more.

Cammie takes a deep breath. "Here, let me just go talk to my mom again. I'm sure that she's not going to make a big deal out of this—"

Headmistress Morgan comes in moments later, and the two of them immediately sit down in one of the hard chairs with the long back, scuffing their Mary Jane shoes against the crumbling wooden desk, with several trinkets, papers, and other materials scattered upon the desk. She signals for the two of them not to make a sound, to be absolutely quiet, and then she leaves the room.

Cammie takes a deep breath once more, and then reminds herself that she's always been able to get out of certain situations by bringing up her ace card about her father leaving her, anything really in order to be able to stay at this hell hole of an Academy. "This is all _your _fault, Cammie," Liz mutters.

"What do you mean it's my fault?" Cammie utters in a faux hurt voice; of course, it's her fault. She was the one who wanted to check out that sale, but then there were these really cute pair of Christian Louboutins, platinum colored and everything, but then if Cammie had the most adorable shoes in the whole wide world, a matching dress would have to go along with; so would accessories, and a nice new nail polish color, and a whole lot more.

Liz sighs. "Of course it's not your fault, little miss perfect—" She sighs again; the two of them have been making a habit of that, for the past few minutes or so, "But, not all of us have a mom as the headmistress who can get us out of every situation."

"—y'know, that my mom actually doesn't get me out of every little situation, okay, Liz? I'm that as fortunate as you think that I am; my mom's been lying to me about my dad for my whole life. And on top of that, I actually know the truth, now, so don't bring up the "Your Mom is the Headmistress" card ever again, because it's not that way," Cammie sighs, then adjusts her new dress, and places one of her bags on the ground, admiring the silk pleats of the skirt.

"My sister has cancer," Liz says in a small voice.

Nobody says anything ever that; tears just roll down both of their cheeks, and they try their hardest not to look at one another; thankfully, Headmistress Morgan re-enters the room, breaking the silence with a voice much louder than the two of hers. "WHAT were the two of you thinking?" She rambles on and off, adjusting some of the papers, and pacing back and forth like Liz had been only minutes earlier to the present time.

From the corner of her eye, Cammie notices a few figures of upperclassmen sneaking out of the building, and tries to notify her mother, pointing at the window, but they've already disappeared by the time that Headmistress Morgan actually draws her attention away from the lecture. "I understand that this is a difficult time — for the both of you — but this isn't a proper way to act, for anybody, no matter what they're going through. Are we clear?"

Liz and Cammie both nod their heads fervently, and Cammie lets a small smile slip onto her face; maybe, her mother wasn't as bad as she thought. Being let out with just a warning wasn't too bad. "—but you're not going to get away with this, do you understand?"

"Wait, what?" The two of them echo each other, Liz saying the statement first, a little more shocked with Cammie repeating it right after her; Cammie continues the conversation, "What do you mean we're not going to get away with this?" She laughs, lightly, and then the laughs turning more nervous. "We've learned our lesson, haven't we Liz?"

"Well—"

"Liz!"

"Um, yes, Headmistress Morgan; we made a mistake, but we're ready to pay any sort of fee if that's necessary, but please," Liz is on her hands and knees now, begging and Cammie's looking on with a comical expression before realizing that she's supposed to be doing the same thing, if she wants to stay at this Academy, "—don't kick us out!"

Headmistress Morgan sits down, putting on a pair of thin-rimmed violet glasses. "Well, to be honest, I was thinking about something more along the lines of working together. I realize that your dormitory room is one of the only first year rooms that isn't getting along, and as the headmistress of the Gallagher-Blackthorne Academy, it's my objective that all of the students should be getting together, and." She takes a pause, a deep breath, "If they aren't getting together well, I have to make sure that they do get together well."

"What are you trying to say?" Cammie asks, rolling her eyes, yet almost on the edge of her seat in anticipation of figuring out the punishment. "If we aren't going to be kicked out of the Academy, I mean, I guess that we could do the dishes, or something like that."

"Or," Headmistress Morgan offers. "Something along the lines of this."

.

"This," Headmistress Morgan says loudly, as if she's presenting her grand masterpiece project, "—is what I was talking about. And," before they can say another word to contradict the decision of the headmistress, or spoil her glorious mood. "If you don't want to participate in this, you can be expelled from the Academy and there will be a bus, a much uglier one than this to take you to juvenile detention five miles from here. Good luck."

And with that, Headmistress Morgan leaves them with nothing but a driver and everything assembled; In front of them was a yellow school bus — large, and with black tachylite stains near the front of it.

Cammie recognizes the rest of her roommates who are already there; Macey and Zach are making out, something that bothers her for no reason in particular; Jonas is searching for nonexistent wi-fi signals; Bex is practicing a sparring match with Grant, and the two of them are half-flirting, half-working out; Jonas just sits in the corner like the lonely boy stereotype that he's already portrayed well enough so far.

She decides to pull out the list of papers, a packet in an accordion folder, light pastel pink in color with several tabs in various colors, corresponding with the day number that the eight of them would be on this "tour" to say; nevertheless, Cammie wasn't looking forward to the bonding time.

Apparently, they would have to get to work better together for some unknown reason; Macey walks over to her, and snatches the accordion folder, spilling a few papers, out of Cammie's hands, and grins. "Ooh, is this a spy conspiracy?"

Cammie can't stop laughing for the next few minutes. "No, Macey; this is called "bonding time" for the eight of us."

She pouts, "But I'm already bonding well enough with _him,_" she waves over at Zach, and Cammie feels nauseous all of a sudden, and perhaps it's not the fact that she was woken up at the wake of dawn, and hadn't eaten a morsel of food since. Or maybe it was that; yes, Cammie decides, it was definitely that.

"But, you have to bond with _everybody_, Mace," she enunciates. "From lonely boy," she waves over at Jonas who's sitting under a tree, making comical expressions at his cell phone that somehow got wi-fi in the middle of nowhere. "ToLiz," this time, Cammie waves over at Liz with a smile on her face, but Liz only replies with a frown, trying her best to ignore the person who got them into this situation. "Um, Macey, I have a question."

"Yeah?" She replies, hands on hips, looking completely not interested.

"Do you know anything about why we're here in the first place — and if you do, do you hold it against me about what I did, because I'm pretty sure that what we did, well actually it was my fault but we're friends, right and I think that friends should stick together especially in situations like this and it's really important that we remain friends, and you're not going to get mad at me about this because that would ruin everything and just a few minutes ago, and actually right now, I think that you're actually pretty happy about this situation because who likes school in the first place, except then again, I think that those kids over there, but then again, I'm just really confused but do you think that we can still be friends?"

Macey just stands there for a minute, with a blank expression on her face; and then says, "Could you repeat that?"

On the other hand, Cammie just facepalms herself, obviously with no patience to repeat the entire rambling statement that for the most part, she had already forgotten most of it, but isn't willing to admit that. "Do you want to still be friends?"

"I thought we are friends," Macey only says, her facial features contorting into one more confused. "Aren't we friends?"

"Yes," Cammie replies with a smile, "—yes, we are friends."

Macey rolls her eyes, "So, do you want to get on with it?"

This time, Cammie's the only one to be confused. "Get on with what?"

"The fact that we're going to have nothing to do for the next eighteen days or so, or at least that's how long Rachel told us it's going to be until the end of this sort of bonding camp thing; she didn't tell us anything else, though," Macey notifies, skimming a few of the papers that she had previously snatched from the accordion folder, and laughing a little. "She doesn't seriously expect us to do this, does she?"

.

Fifteen minutes later, the eight of them are running alongside the bus, trying to keep up with the ten mile per hour rate, though most of them have already fallen far behind, opting to sit on the top of the bus before the bus starts shaking, and they're thrown off to the ground — there's no severe damage to any important parts, like their frontal lobe or their hearts, but most of them can't wait until the bonding experience is over.

"I. Hate. You," Liz mutters, her teeth clenched and her jaw drawn closed tight, speeding ahead of Cammie and Macey who are only on a light jog, moving much faster than somebody with a low endurance rate should probably have.

Macey rolls her eyes, but doesn't say anything until Liz is much farther away. "What's her problem?"

Cammie just shrugs her shoulders, lying through her teeth, "Not sure. What's up with you and Zach?" It's a question that she's been dying to ask over the past few minutes, but it doesn't make any sense now; Macey ignores it and brings up another topic, as if she's trying to dodge a bullet. Nevertheless, Cammie goes along with the flow, not wanting to disrupt their friendship.

After all, in a place like this, allies were necessary — at least that was what she liked to think. Though Cammie wasn't exactly the type of person who would be starting any fights, she had always thought that making friends was necessary. On the other hand, she wasn't very good at it. First of all, she was shy and could barely utter a single word to a person of the opposite gender until the end of the ninth grade, unless it was for help on homework; Cammie could go on and on all day about her problems in life, but this wasn't what this trip was supposed to be about. "So what about that game of truth or dare?"

Macey laughs. "I knew that there was something different about you, bitch," she answers, laughing, clapping her hands loudly; nobody really stops besides the two of them, and she pulls a whistle out of the back pocket of her pleated skirt, personally designed for storing whistles, according to her.

On the other hand, it seemed to work; everybody stopped at the harsh sound, and most of them fell onto the ground, full of chips and other grass stains that covered and marred their previously clean clothing garments, only stained by sweat. They form some sort of haphazard circle, falling apart as soon as they had combined into this sort of more oblong shape that doesn't really work well. Macey decides that Liz can ask the first one, "Truth or dare, Cammie?"

"Dare," she decides on a whim, fidgeting with the frayed edges of her pleated skirt, marred from grass stains and other food marks, the water of a piece of watermelon still on the edges of her clear fingers, mixed with the smell of fresh soap.

Liz smiles, and Cammie wonders whether or not she should have stuck with the safe option. "I dare you to kiss Zach."

And, they brush lips; only for a second, but it's enough.

Macey just looks at her, her eyes cold and dead, though still frighteningly alive, trembling beneath a composed, still face, years of practice having gone into the preservation. "I can't believe that you could think we're still friends." And, she walks away; Zach chases after her, not even sending a second glance back at Cammie, Bex and Liz just sending her looks of disbelief.

And now, Cammie's truly alone.

**a/n: **M'kay, so I was going to update around the time of September 6th but then I realized that I probably won't have much time later on and then if I keep on postpone chapter updates then it will be around October when I next updated a new chapter, so hopefully, this update doesn't seem too rushed or anything — and it's around five hundred words shorter but I didn't feel as though adding anything after this.

Thanks to **krikanalo, AlexandraGallagher, wittykittylizzie, ViolinistOfTheNight, parachute hearts, TerryCherry, **_Guest, _**miyame-chan, stop for a minute and smile, bubblegum04, Autumn Herondale, small-town hearts, angelsfallen32, **_Guest (2), laurenfish, _**youarethebestpersonever2, and **_konstantines _for reviewing!

Please review for another preview?

**x clara**


	16. fifteen

**a/n: **m'kay so this was written like in the middle of the night (around one o'clock) _— but, because _of the really good response from the last two chapters, I've decided to update this chapter so it's been three chapters in three days but i wish that i could update more frequently but school's also been starting; and argh asdfgjkl drama in the cw forum & the vampire diaries is just messing with my head so _hope you like this __—_

**the defiant ones  
**chapter sixteen

.:.

Cammie spends most of her time avoiding the taunts, the teases;

(Along the way, she realizes that perhaps all of this was a set up and the part of her, who knew her better than anyone else in the entire wide world and was particularly good at judging whether people were reliable or not had been correct — was the true fact, something that she wouldn't have admitted if that fateful game, just a simple game of truth or dare had not occurred only hours previous to the current time.

There's barely anybody else who's actually still in the school bus; most of them are in their hotel room. Apparently, Headmistress Morgan allowed them to spend the night in somewhere that wasn't a smelly yellow school bus that quite frankly emmitted the worst smell that Cammie had ever smelled; nevertheless, she couldn't concentrate on the fact that it was just simply a game.

The kiss was for a game, and all it was a small brush of the lips — no severe making out, no seven minutes in heaven or anything. After all, Macey was the first person to suggest the idea of the truth or dare game, and maybe it was her fault along; maybe she had been plotting against Cammie since they had first met).

And what was up with Liz? Asking her to kiss Zach on the dare? Cammie could have sworn that there was some sort of mischievous glint that flashed in her eyes when she asked the statement but because she was sweet, innocent Liz, nobody was going to suspect anything, right? Everybody seemed to be turning against her, and she barely even knew them.

Suddenly, this bonding trip didn't seem as though it was going to be that fun. She stands up from the humid seat of the bus, near the very back, which quite frankly is extremely sweaty, and walks outside, only to see the bus driver standing near the front, talking in a loud and angry manner on a phone. To be honest, Mr. Solomon wasn't the type of person that she had previously expected to be a bus driver, but everything that Cammie had taken for granted was quickly changing, and there was no going back to previous thoughts, previous assumptions.

He takes a break off his Bluetooth for an instant, nodding, "They're upstairs," and gets back into the bus only a minute later, reading a series of scrambled numbers and letters loudly, completing ignoring the state of distress that Cammie was currently in. She quickly wiped the tears of loneliness from her eyes, though there weren't too many. She wasn't going to overreact to the situation. They would change their minds, right?

After all, the seven of her roommates had seventeen more days to forgive her; she walks inside the hotel, and slightly gapes.

Though Cammie was aware that the Academy was well-funded, she hadn't ever expected something as lavish as this; she spins around in her skirt, smiling a little to herself; maybe this wouldn't be too bad.

"With a selection of 345 luxurious rooms and suites, each one of them lavishly equipped and individually designed: Elegant rooms designed by star architect Siegward Graf Pilati. In contrast, the urban Cosmopolitan R&B rooms or the African-inspired colonial rooms represent sophisticated modernity. For dining purposes, guests are spoilt for choice with the hotel's five restaurants offering from Polynesian to Bavarian style cuisine as well as Michelin starred dishes. Look forward to inspiring conservations and a relaxed atmosphere in one of our six bars," a woman standing near the front of the hotel lobby says.

She's standing behind a mahogany desk, toes tapping, typing something frantically on a keyboard while talking through an earpiece located in her right ear and Cammie wonders about the world that's from her father's journal, whether it's actually true because nobody's acting like they should be acting. She signs in near the front of the desk, smiling back at the women, who seems too happy for her own good.

The women, whose name tag reads Paige, continues speaking, half through the earpiece, half to Cammie, "Blue Spa is the crowning glory of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, and has received numerous awards. Spread over 1,300 square metres, star architect Andrée Putman has designed a unique wellness oasis with pool, a spacious sauna area with steam bath, sun deck and a gym. Our internationally trained therapists invite you to choose from a wide variety of body treatments and massages. Exclusive beauty treatments and a hair salon round off the range of options. Our very own theatre Komödie im Bayerischen Hof represents the best in light theatre. Our famous Night Club stages genuine musical highlights with almost daily performances by international jazz greats. Furthermore the hotel's unique Cinema Lounge is a great evening hotspot."

"Room for the Academy, please," she says loudly, trying to speak over the loud music booming in the room; nevertheless, though this hotel was elegant and refined, its music still seemed as though it was a cable car accident.

The women's smile immediately fades, "Oh, you're from those sorts of people; those Academy lot with the troublemakers. I can't believe that you bitches are getting royal treatments, because daddy was just able to cover up everything with a few bags of money." The rude women slides over one of the key cards, and a small piece of paper for the date in which they'd be kicked out if they didn't leave before 12:00 A.M. Though, Headmistress Morgan had kept true to her word — they were staying here for eighteen days exactly, whether they, or the women at the front desk, liked it or not.

Cammie accepted the keys with the sigh, jingled them a few times in her hand, and placed the card in her left hand, walking towards the elevator before seeing the sign that it was being reserved for a move-in for the next fourteen minutes. _Might as well take the stairs, _she thinks to herself; as she soon as she walks up the staircase, she decides to look at the floor number on the key card.

Then, she groans. Obviously, some sort of fate or destiny, or the thing that controlled everybody else was trying to make her life miserable.

Why else would they make the room on the fifteenth floor, out of a building that was only sixteen floors high? She assumed that the sixteenth floor were for those who had bought the apartment, or rented it out for a long period of time; judging by the map, Cammie saw that the square footage wasn't too generous for their room either. On the other hand, it was better than the tiny expanse that was given all the way back at the Gallagher Blackthorne Academy, though as the years went on, Cammie hoped that the room sizes and roommate assignments would change. That would be for the best.

Nevertheless, she remembered something that Headmistress Morgan had told Liz and her in the office, before they had left on this bonding trip. Something along the lines of having the girls share a room, and the boys share a separate room. _Shoot, _she swears underneath her breath, softly; she thinks about what's going to happen during the trip. Perhaps, there would be an extra couch in the shared common room that she could sleep in.

After all, Cammie was aware that the girls wouldn't be that welcoming towards her, after all the hate that they had built up against her.

Then again, she couldn't stop thinking about whether Bex would take the efforts to maintain their friendship or perhaps ditch her along with Macey and Liz, trying to stay on the winning side. Cammie barely pays enough attention and by the time she's already reached the sixteenth floor all she feels is the never ending numbness that keeps on consuming her.

"Hey, guys," she mutters awkwardly — Cammie resists the urge to apologize because it's not probably her fault even in the first place, but maybe that would be a better idea if she prompted the apologizing. Maybe they would apologize back to her, and include her in all of the seemingly fun that they were having. They immediately separate from one another, the boys and the girls going up the staircases to their separate common rooms in a way that Cammie can only assume that they're trying to avoid her.

The only person that remains after everybody is a certain Preston Winters, who's sitting, looking just as lonely as she is.

She almost feels the need to reach out to him, before thinking that would be somewhat freaky as she barely knows the person. Nevertheless, Cammie understands the situation in which he's in. It seems as though out of the eight them, the friend groups and cliques have already been created, and both Preston and Cammie have been left out of the mix, thought as vermin.

"What happened to you?" He's the first to ask the question; Cammie looks in the mirror on the wall, and laughs a little to herself, taking off her scuffed Mary Janes and wishing that she had chosen some more comfortable footwear to bring along on the trip. She wasn't even quite sure where the allotted one suitcase was anymore; perhaps, it was still on the bus, wherever that was anymore.

Cammie laughs a little louder. "I guess, I was the one who messed everything up. I never say the right things, I never do the right things anyway," she's laughing even louder now and Preston seems to be resisting the urge to move away as far as possible from the insane girl. "You know, you're the only person left who isn't completely hating me."

"And, if you keep on laughing," Preston only replies, taking a swig out of a coffee mug, "—you're not going to have anybody who doesn't hate you."

Cammie cracks a grin, and even though it's some of the worst of times, a smile dances across her face and as quickly disappears as Macey, Liz, and Bex come down the staircase; Bex immediately runs back up the stairs, and Cammie can tell that they'll be some drama coming shortly, about choosing the proper sides but then again she's known Bex for the longest time.

And she knows that Bex always chooses the winning side, which in this case would have to be Macey's, who seemed like the type of person who always one and when she didn't, always held a grudge that never went away for the side that did win, in the aftermath of everything, perhaps even months, years later. "What's going on in here?" Macey is the first to speak up, the supposed leader of the group, Cammie presumes.

Cammie instinctively stands up, and brushes her hands off on her skirt, wringing them slightly in a frantic and nervous manner. "Nothing, Macey. Nothing that you should be concerned about."

They stand in silence for about two minutes before Macey is the first to yell. "You weren't supposed to kiss him, you know. It was just a test, to see whether you were actual friend material and Liz here," Liz waves, smiling like a little evil genius — like Belinda Koboi, except less take-over-the-world minded and more, much more of the "let's ruin everybody's lives for the fun of it" — waving. Yep, definitely Belinda Koboi. "—was the person who designed the test. Isn't she just the greatest friend in the world?" Macey speaks in a condescending manner, forcing Cammie to look up at her, standing near the top of the staircase.

She walks down the staircase slowly, Liz flanking her on one side, the other left empty; the fact that Bex has already deserted Macey's little clique makes Cammie feel as though there's still hope about maintaining friendships. "It's not my fault," Cammie replies in an indignant tone. "He was the one who actually kissed me first, Mace, if you'd care to know about the fact."

Macey flinches at the nickname. "Only my friends call me Mace, Cameron."

It's Cammie's turn to flinch, "Are you seriously going to keep on acting like this? Because we have eighteen more days for you to get off your high horse and realize that it was just a game — a game that _you_ had started in the first place," Cammie announces, pointing her fingers.

"Excuse me?" Macey replies, indignant as ever. "You had the choice of not playing along with the game but, no. You couldn't wait to get your hands on my boyfriend, mine."

"Would you two just shut up?" Preston begs; both of them look surprised. He doesn't seem like the type of person to end a fight, nevertheless they follow his gaze which is out the window, and gasp loudly. "While you two were bickering about boy-toys—"

"He's not a boy-toy!" Macey says; Preston laughs a little, obviously getting the reaction out of her that he had planned to get. "He's my boyfriend, and that should count for something at least; on the other hand, Cammie doesn't even think that she should have asked me, or even Zach, whether she should be able to kiss him. I should probably get that sort of notification, but that's what friends do, did," she corrects herself quickly, near the end.

Preston rolls his eyes, "The bus has already gotten away, you idiots."

It's their turn to be surprised, and both Macey and Liz come running down the staircase, their feet barefoot towards the windows, and wail consecutively as they see the yellow bus being driven away by a man in a black suit, also known as Mr. Solomon, wearing different clothing, which had to be thought of as strange since he didn't bring any suitcases or bags along on the eighteen day trip, and there wasn't a mall or gas station for miles. Just this hotel.

.:.

By the time that Macey and Liz run downstairs, Cammie's sort of laughing, sort of groaning because now there really isn't any way out of this situation unless she was to walk the ten miles, and she hadn't been made that desperate, _yet. _The two of them come upstairs fifteen minutes later, talking loudly and rudely at one another, and then turning towards Cammie and telling her that this was all her fault, but she could still fix this, by calling her mother.

"She doesn't listen to me, y'know," Cammie interrupts their little discussion. "Just because my mom's the headmistress, it doesn't mean that I get my way all the time, for every little matter. You would understand that, wouldn't you Macey?" Macey just ignores Cammie, pretending as though a bee had been buzzing around, shunning her like an immature seventh grader. "Fine," Cammie continues, "I'll just hang out with _— with, Preston here." _On the other hand, Cammie wishes that she could change her last words because Preston looks less than happy to carry on a conversation with anyone, for that matter, let alone the person who supposedly just got rid of their way out.

Nevertheless, they're left alone as soon as Macey and Liz leave back up the staircase, obviously still angry; she can still hear their shouts upstairs, and a thick British accent once Bex is informed of the horrible news. "So, Preston," she begins, awkwardly, "What brings you here?"

He raises an eyebrow, "It's classified information. If it was let loose, the president would have my head; my father would have my head, in fact, and you could possibly release all of this classified information out to the public, and then all the lawyers and all the secrecy would have been for nothing, so no. I am in no position to tell you how I got in here."

"You're hiding something," Cammie says, loudly. "I've read all the tabloids about you — and for some reason or another, you're not acting like a stuck-up wannabe brat right now and there's no reason for you to act like anything else."

Preston stands up, taking his book with him up the staircase, "You have no right to judge me; nobody does."

And now, she really is all alone.

Cammie decides to spend the next sixteen minutes or so flipping through one of the books that's laid in the exact middle of the table, feeling the urge to rip out some of the pages — there are somehow advertisements for boarding schools, military schools (but never the Academy) in which all of the children and teenagers are laughing, looking more happy than they would if they were back at public or private school, with their friends and family.

It just all seems so fake, Cammie realizes; and it probably is. She's watched all of the movies about military school, but none if it's like it is in Cadet Kelly where you suddenly start making friends and everybody accepts you for who you are after a few horrible mistakes are made on your part.

Even at the end, nothing turns out as perfect as second place, as perfect as the queen bitch being nice to you and telling you that without you, the school wouldn't have made it this far. Life is more like A Little Princess, where when all of your family members die or desert you, you live like a servant, your entire life changed for good, and made into a servant, with no fairy godmother to do a _Bibbity-bop! _spell for Prince Charming's hand in marriage.

Life just isn't like that. There's a small green apple next to the books and magazines, and Cammie hungrily devours it, biting into the shell and ignoring the surging pain that rises in her teeth, having only been tightened with an expander the day previously.

She takes a deep breath, and decides to resolve all of these issues by apologizing to the girls; setting down the rotten apple core into the trash can and the magazines and books where they had previously been, her confidence grows with every steep step that she takes up the staircase, until she comes across the division, and turns left to the girls' room, stopping outside the door when she hears her name being said repeatedly.

Cammie tries desperately to ignore all the words that they are saying against her but it never seems to work — when has it ever?

Shrugging her shoulders, Cammie walks into the bedroom without knocking on the door, immediately creating a silence and gasping when she sees the destruction that's been done to her bed; crumbs of food and mosquitoes gather around it as though this hotel isn't one bit lavish, not at all; and wishes, not for the first time, that she had never come to this place at all.

Immediately, Cammie leaves the room — she knows when she's not wanted; bringing a few of her clothes with her, and changing in one of the common room bathrooms before settling down in the couch in the common room, resting her head on the hard edge of the sofa.

It's the best that she's going to get; nevertheless, she can't even imagine staying here for much longer, in a place where everything's different than what she's expected. She wonders if it would be possible to run away, to escape all of this. Maybe it is. Maybe it would be. It just wouldn't be the better decision, right now. All she had to do was get through these eighteen days, and then three to four more years. Then, she would be done.

Cammie couldn't wait to leave — to leave her roommates, to leave her mother; and to find where she truly belonged.

.:.

Thanks to **small-town hearts, **_konstantines,_ **djmia, ViolinistOfTheNight, Autumn Herondale, wittykittylizzie, The Terifical Meee, RheaShetty, krikanalo, XxCandyygirlxX, TerryCherry, bubblegum04, splendeur, & **_guest _for reviewing the last chapter, :)

This is definitely a filler chapter, and I'm really sorry for that but more will happen in the next chapter, along with some preston/cammie friendship and Mr. Solomon returning with the bus, and another fight or two. Please review for another preview?

**x clara**


	17. sixteen

**a/n: **so, i think that i was supposed to update two days ago, but then i never got around to finishing more than two thousand words and i had promised that this chapter would be at least four thousand words, so, i'm sorry for the late chapter but the word count for this chapter is a little more than four thousand so hope you guys like this chapter, though, (:

**the defiant ones  
**chapter seventeen

.:.

By the time that Mr. Solomon and the bus have returned, a not so quiet night has passed; several pranks have resulted in their only teacher — who's a freaking retired fisherman; decides that the eight of them require the disaster package. Macey feigns a slightly offended look, saying that the word disaster should never apply to a lady like her and Cammie just rolls her eyes. That muscle of her body is already getting exasperated, and she wishes that the game of truth and dare had never been created in the first place, yet the point was that it was a game, _just a game. _Couldn't Macey handle that much?

The warning tones bell ring, and Cammie refocuses her attention, "Today, class," Mr. Parolin begins their first hour class of world history, pretending that they're still in school — he's not even good at fishing! "We're going to be doing a little debate." He claps his hands together, all bubbly.

Cammie scoffs. She'd never thought that she would apply the description of bubbly to a retired fishermen who had an obsession with making people's lives miserable. Nevertheless, none of this was expected in the slightest; Cammie was wearing the same destroyed clothes from the night before. "Do we get to choose our teams?" Liz raises her hand before speaking, smiling like a little good girl.

Mr. Parolin takes a minute to think about, obviously judging the problems of fights occurring based on the current seating arrangements, in which Macey and Liz are sitting in the center of the back of the classroom, Zach — who's the real troublemaker in all of these dramatics; and Grant and Jonas, his partners in crime flanking them. Preston sits front and center, like the role model of a perfect A student, the type that can't give an honest opinion on anything that anybody disagrees on and wishes for everybody to love him. Cammie's alone, like always, taking the closest seat to the door, an easy exit from everything.

"I'm sorry, Miss Sutton," and he talks with this sort of thick accent and calls everybody by Miss and Mr., respective with their last names, harsh and dissonant sounds, a unique collaboration. "But, I will be choosing your partners for this assignment." He doesn't sound sorry in the slightest.

Taking off a pair of thick rimmed glasses, Mr. Parolin announces, "Never mind, actually," he's looking over a jumbled amount of papers, some slightly ripped near the front and with bright red CLASSIFIED stamps on most of them, others marked DAY ONE or DAY TWO, going on and on until the eighteenth day, perhaps referring, probably referring to the eight of them and the eighteen days that they would be spending together.

Cammie couldn't wait until this stupid idea was completed; she wished in the first place that she could have begged her mother to not force them to go on this trip, but they weren't even that close in the first place — no amount of begging could have worked, could it have?

Fixating her attention on the last words of their teacher, for every single subject can be taught by a fishermen apparently (like, didn't they have funds to hire a an educated person who actually knew anything about the fall of the Western Roman Empire besides the fact that it was "back in my day, when the dinosaurs used to roam", which wasn't even funny anymore, and barely manages to catch the words that Cammie dreads, "You're allowed to pick your own partners."

Partners scramble for one another, and in a haze of frenzy and gazes met, it turns out that Macey and Zach are partners, then Liz and Grant, then Bex and Jonas who are both looking down awkwardly, leaving Preston to be with Cammie, a fact that she doesn't exactly dread but would wish otherwise.

She slowly makes her way over to the desk next to his, plopping down into it and ignoring the whispers of "I'm sorry for you" from the other six classmates, who actually look sad; the dismal expression on Liz's face is the most real emotion that Cammie's ever seen that bitch display. She realizes that perhaps calling sweet little "innocent" Liz might have been a little harsh, yet she was the one who had started all of the dramatics.

Cammie doesn't even think for a moment about blaming everything on herself — who was the one to kiss Zach; it was just a brush of lips, and she tries not to think much about it, instead paying a little more attention on the words of Mr. Parolin, but none of that really matters anymore.

The words go in one side of head, and out the other, flying away with all of the other distractions that seem to come up in her life.

Mr. Parolin directs for the eight of them to go outside of the hotel, in which most of their classes take place in either small, dingy rooms or a somewhat luxorious ballroom, though Cammie knows that she's seen better. "So," she begins, dragging the word out, "What are we supposed to do?"

"Are you serious?" Preston laughs, in a knowing manner. "God, I should have known that I would be stuck with some whiny little brat like you. People should be begging on their knees to be partners with somebody as talented and knowing as me, and then you just assume that I'm going to be doing all of the work when you should be working too, since this is a shared grade, sadly—"

Cammie interrupts, "You don't know what we're doing, do you?"

"Not in the slightest." There's silence between the two of them, easily broken by overhearing conversations of what they're actually supposed to do, mostly from Jonas who seems like the smartest kid here. She has no idea how he ended up in a place like _this. _Didn't he care about his college? His future? Nevertheless, Cammie realized that she hadn't been too focused on college applications, at least not recently.

Mr. Parolin repeats the instructions, "The eight of you will be having a debate on the subject of the raising of a child, in different cultures and countries, and which cultures raise their children to be the most successful. I'll be needing the names of the winners of the debate — but remember, this is just a debate, it isn't a real life trauma if you end up losing; in fifteen minutes. Good luck, everyone," he nods slowly, leaving quickly as if trying to avoid the battle scene, and Cammie rolls her eyes for what seems to be the millionth time this day.

"Well," Macey begins, sighing. "It's obvious that Zach and I are going to be the winners, so," Macey snatches the clipboard with the light wisteria, a faint shade of purple, pen out of Jonas's hands, who backs up quickly, obviously scared of the older girl, "I might as well just write down our names."_  
_

Cammie scoffs, obviously not agreeing with Macey about the matter. "Isn't anyone going to do anything?" She mutters, repeating it one more time, louder. "What the hell," she murmurs, not caring if this ends up ruining her life — because she goes to the Academy and her ability to perhaps make it into the Ivy's is completely fucked up so who cares about anything anymore; and snatches the clipboard from Macey, giving her a light shove.

Macey quickly recovers from the shove. After all, it wasn't anything that was going to hurt somebody who was above the age of three and was able to have a less frail skeleton than somebody in a malnourished, third world country; Macey was the Vice President's daughter, so she probably shouldn't have had any problem with that, but scoffed back, looking indignant, almost as if she couldn't believe that anybody, especially somebody like Cammie, would ever disobey a queen like her. Of course, she doesn't say those words, but Cammie can assume the thoughts from her array of mixed emotions.

In a way, it's first surprise and then anger, and then a little happiness because challenges are always fun to mess around with, and then a hardened look because no queen is ever joyous when in a battle, as much as a battle can happen in a parking lot of a not so luxurious hotel in the middle of nowhere; Cammie tries her best not to laugh, but ends up doubling over in laughter.

.:.

Mr. Parolin is mindlessly grading a few papers from his students pretests when he hears a sound outside, something along the lines of a vicious roar, maybe a sound that could be emitted from a mountain lion or a werewolf, maybe a freaky Original hybrid thing, but not from a group of teenage girls.

He ignores it. He has more important things to do; like, think about the good old days of fishing.

.:.

"It was just a game!" Cammie screams; Macey and her are rotating one another in the parking lot and though there isn't really incentive to go fighting against one another, there's been enough tension between the two in order to spark a fight, a match that just needed that last bit to ignite, flaming across the area though nobody seems to hear them, from inside. Out of the corner of her eye, Cammie spots Mr. Parolin looking out of the window and upon seeing the two rotating girls, he only shrugs, and returns back to the dingy, old room that quite frankly, reeks; and this is why you don't hire retired fishermen to be the supervisors of eight juvenile delinquents, some of the worst in the nation.

Macey pushes back, angrily, "It's all your fault — you weren't supposed to fall for the trap."

Cammie raises her eyebrows; of course, she's known along that Macey and Liz had perhaps been collaborating behind Cammie's back for who knows how much longer anymore but still, it hurts more when she actually says it to her face, and it sparks just a little more anger in her. Before they know it, the two of them are being separated, not by any means of physical force (because Macey would have said, "I'm going to sue you!"), but by the sharp piercing noise of a whistle, coming from Mr. Solomon who's dressed in a parka and several layers of warm clothing though it's the middle of summer.

Technically, summer's already over but that's not the point. Macey and Liz squeal together, running towards the bus and hugging it, ignoring all of their Cammie-related problems and though the two of them start banging on the bus doors, it doesn't budge.

So, it makes perfect sense for them to keep on banging, even if it doesn't open swiftly, right? Right.

Mr. Solomon keeps on blowing the whistle, trying to gain their attention before taking out a small blowhorn out of his backpack — and everything is just getting too confusing, because she just wants to go home, before announcing, "All of you. We're going back to the Academy. Now."

Nobody makes a motion to move, and Cammie smiles slightly, perhaps thinking to herself that all of her problems would be over once she would return back to the Gallagher Blackthorne Academy and though it wasn't exactly the best home that she had ever gone too, it was better than this dingy, not so luxurious hotel with a teacher who's a FREAKING RETIRED FISHERMEN, and he's not even GOOD at fishing; place. She's the first to get on the bus.

She's never been so excited to see any building by the time that the bus pulls up in front of the Gallagher Blackthorne Academy, approximately four hours, thirty minutes, and forty seconds later — Cammie had been counting down the minutes, watching the GPS in the front of the bus, which spoke in a dialect of Chinese, a language that Mr. Solomon apparently understood, ever since the bus had left the hotel.

It was thirteen minutes into the bus ride when everybody realized that they had left all of their bags and other stuff back at the hotel; Macey was the first to realize that her bags were gone, and let out a blood chilling, piercing shriek, causing even Mr. Solomon, who seemed to have really good focus, to let the bus jolt, almost landing it in a ditch. Actually, it had landed in a ditch, and Mr. Solomon had dictated that they all work together to get the bus back running, if they wanted to make it back in time for dinner.

Which, of course, they all wanted their dinner, thank you very much; nevertheless, as soon as Mr. Solomon had turned his head away, Macey and Liz both refused to put in any sort of work. It wouldn't have made a difference, Cammie thought to herself, both of them were weaklings.

Nevertheless, as soon as Mr. Solomon had gotten off his phone — which mysteriously picked up some sort of wi-fi, in the middle of nowhere; Macey had handed her cellphone to Preston who immediately let go of the toolbox, sending the tools flying into the mud, splattering everybody, especially Mr. Solomon who didn't look the slightest bit pleased, and just slightly impressed that Preston was reading an article about cuticle care and illegal hair products in Estonia, all from Macey's iPhone.

She lets out a sigh of relief, staring longingly at the mattresses in their shared dormitory room. Though they weren't the best, they were better than the couch at the hotel; definitely much better, Cammie thinks again, back to the fact that classes would be resuming.

Then again, Cammie wondered what would happen if the girls, primarily Macey and Liz, decided that perhaps they were taking this sort of messed up, made up and completely imaginary grudge a little too far. Maybe it was just the location that had changed their attitudes and now that they were back at the Academy, Macey and her would return to being good friends again, Bex and her would return to being best friends, and Liz would just be that random smart little girl that nobody talked to unless they needed homework help instead of a conniving little bitch who couldn't understand the point of a game.

Cammie yearns for those back in elementary school, back even in middle school, even the few days before she had stole the money from the bank; it wasn't worth it, now that she thinks about it, was it worth it? Was it worth not going to her dream college, her dream life, because of a screw up of a mother? "She's still your mother, you know," Preston randomly says, before clearing his throat, "—you were speaking out loud."

The bus doors open slightly, and all eight of them quickly leap towards the door before it closes back on them, Mr. Solomon saying something on security measures and background checks, and they all groan, most of them staying near the front of the bus in case they were lucky enough for the bus doors to open again within thirty minutes. After all, though it was near the end of September, a hundred degrees was what the temperature felt like; beads of sweat formed, trickling down Cammie's face as she hurriedly wiped them away, pressing a cold water bottle, the only item that she had carried with her from the hotel, that had already melted, turning the water lukewarm, though the exterior was still icy cold, so cold that it burned against her skin.

"We're going to be stuck in here for some time, aren't we?" Cammie reluctantly mutters, falling back against the hard, leather seat that sweats more than she does, clogging her pores. "Fml."

Preston laughs, "Did you seriously just speak in text speak?"

She rolls her eyes, "Got anything wrong with that, Winters?"

Nevertheless, Preston keeps on laughing, doubling over like a little girl that can't really stop herself from continuously laughing, to the point where it just becomes a nuisance and people stop talking and start staring; Cammie awkwardly inches away as far as she can make it without falling off the edge of the seat and a smile spills across her face when the doors open, and she runs out, in so much glee that she could almost kiss the ground. _Almost._

Five minutes later, after Cammie washes up after being ever so rudely pushed out by Macey and Liz who demand their fifteen minutes of reapplying their makeup and hair time, with Bex awkwardly trailing behind, always indecisive about which side she's on; she hasn't exactly come out with any real opinion on the matter, a fact that greatly confuses and angers Cammie who'd rather have a direct opinion about whether Bex was going to be a complete jerk and ignore her with the rest of them, are maybe stay her friend — like they always had been in the past. Nevertheless, she takes a deep breath and walks down the staircase, in a straight line with the rest of the other students, sitting at the third bench on the left side.

On top of the tables, in replacement of foods, here were stacks of papers, more specifically college ruled notebooks in a standard black, or sometimes a light blue composition notebook, perforated edges inclusive; the room was absorbed in a tomb-like silence, though Cammie could make out some distinct chatter from the back corners of the room. She starts looking through the pages, quickly, then looks up for a moment.

Everybody else seems to be doing the same actions that she does though they seem to be doing them without emotion, as though they could care less about the papers in front of them; Cammie leans over to skim over Jonas's papers, and realizes that perhaps all of their stacks of papers are different, as none of his childhood recollections are recorded through photographs, through letters, through books, through frames of a camera lense into these stacks of paper. She begins sifting through them more quickly, in a nature that could almost be described as frantic.

She reads a certain passage, which catches her eye; A code black protects Gallagher Academy from enemies. A code black is the scariest thing that can happen to Gallagher Academy. The family tapestry disappears into the wall, all the lights go out and lanterns turn on. Steel covers descend over the windows and vending machines that lead to deeper, more secret parts of the school slide into the ground and are covered with stone so it looks like they were never there. The bookcases slide into the walls and doors are closed and locked by high tech locks. The library spins and sinks into the floor and the burn boxes burst into flames. And Gilly's sword, one of the most important Gallagher treasures slides into its vault that then sinks into the floor. The students all report to their common rooms, and the teachers are there with them. The entire school system goes on lock down and nothing comes in or out.

Another passage catches her eye, more confusing than the prior — a code red protects Gallagher Academy from strangers. When Gallagher Academy goes under a code red, the school itself puts on its disguise. Everything changes to look like a normal boarding school. Posters disappear and new ones appear for things like class president and spending a semester in another country. Walls flip, bookcases turn around so that things that normal headmistresses would read are facing out, a TV is added to the headmistress's office, and Gilly's sword goes into a vault. In addition, the headmistress can turn on or off the code red with a small device. All the 7th grade students get led to the P&E barn.

Cammie laughs softly to herself, not loud enough for anybody to come over and wonder what's wrong with her — all of her childhood seems to be recorded onto these papers and all this time when she thought that her mother wasn't even paying attention to her life, perhaps she was.

That's when the lights go off, and everything turns black.

Thanks to **iamadalekdalek, damonsalvatoreissohot, Violinist Of The Night, Rhea Shetty, Autumn Herondale, wittykittylizzie, lilyroselilac123, NicoleGoode, TerryCherry, Taralara10, **_Guest, _**miyame-chan, XxCandyygirlxX,** _piano fingers, guest, _**& small-town hearts **for reviewing, :) THANK YOU SO MUCH, GUYS! Seriously, it means a lot, :)

**x clara **


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